Column: Perhaps a case can be made for feeling gloomy
‘Cheer up, it might never happen!’ It’s a common piece of unwelcome advice, says writer Laurence Coupe.
In lots of cases, however, the dreaded state of affairs has already happened. It takes an effort to be positive.
At the end of ‘Monty Python’s Life of Brian’, Eric Idle sings his now-famous song, ‘Always Look on the Bright Side of Life’, with evident irony, while hanging on a cross.
While we look around for reasons to be cheerful in our own lives, it’s worth bearing mind the starting point of Buddhism: ‘Life is suffering.’
True, there is the possibility of an end to suffering, but that’s a goal that has to be reached through long-term spiritual discipline.
From ancient times, philosophers have been trying to come to terms with the fact of mortality. Is there a point in the life that leads inevitably to death? Elaborate systems of thought have been developed to justify human existence.
Someone who refused to do so was the Romanian thinker, Emil Cioran (1911-1995). Some might call him a pessimist; others might call him a nihilist. One thing we can be sure of is that he couldn’t have cared less which. Nothing really mattered.
You will get the idea if I provide a few memorable quotations from his work.
# If we could see ourselves as others see us, we would vanish on the spot.
#Not to be born is undoubtedly the best plan of all. Unfortunately, it is within no one’s reach.
#It’s not worth the bother of killing yourself, since you always kill yourself too late.
#‘What do you do from morning to night?’ ‘I endure myself.’
#The more you live, the less useful does it seem to have lived. Only one thing matters: learning to be the loser.
#The fact that life has no meaning is a reason to live --moreover, the only one.
#Trees are massacred, houses go up – faces, faces everywhere. … Man is the cancer of the earth.
#I anticipated witnessing in my lifetime the disappearance of our species. But the gods have been against me.
I doubt if I’m alone in being intrigued by such uncompromising declarations.
If your own interest has been aroused, try one of Cioran’s books: for example, ‘The Trouble with Being Born’, or ‘The Temptation to Exist’. They’re remarkably readable.
I should mention also that a major study of Cioran is due out shortly: ‘The Not-Man’ by Stefan Bolea, an important thinker and writer in his own right. I’ve placed my order!
(To access the complete collection of these articles, search ‘Laurence Coupe – Guest Column’.)