I thought I'd share this excerpt from A Confession that really resonated with me, especially the third means of escape he describes. I'm considering including it as an addendum to the note I leave for my family. I first came across it while reading The Conspiracy against the Human Race by Thomas Ligotti, which is also a fantastic book.
"I found that for those who occupied the same position as myself there were four means of escape from the terrible state in which we all were.
The first means of escape is through ignorance. It consists in not perceiving and understanding that life is an evil and an absurdity. People of this class – for the greater part women, or men who are either very young or very stupid – have not understood the problem of life as it presented itself to Schopenhauer, to Solomon, and to Buddha. They see neither the dragon awaiting them, nor the mice eating through the plant to which they cling, and they taste the drops of honey. But they only lick the honey for a time; something directs their attention to the dragon and the mice, and there is an end to their tasting. From these I could learn nothing: we cannot not know what we do know.
The second means of escape is the Epicurean. It consists in, while we know the hopelessness of life, taking advantage of every good there is in it, in avoiding the sight of the dragon and mice, and in seeking the honey as best we can, especially wherever there is most of it. Solomon points out this issue from the difficulty thus: "Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labor the days of his life, which God giveth him, under the sun. Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labor which thou takest under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."
Such is the way in which most people, who belong to the circle in which I move, reconcile themselves to their fate, and make living possible. They know more of the good than the evil of life from the circumstances of their position, and their blunted moral perceptions enable them to forget that all their advantages are accidental, and that all men cannot have harems and palaces, like Solomon; that for one man who has a thousand wives, there are thousands of men who have none, and for each palace there must be thousands of men to build it with the sweat of their brow, and that the same chance which has made me a Solomon today may make me Solomon's slave tomorrow. The dullness of their imagination enables these men to forget what destroyed the peace of the Buddha, the inevitable sickness, old age, and death, which if not today, then tomorrow, must be the end of all their pleasures.
Thus think and feel the majority of the men of our time of the upper classes. That some of them call their dullness of thought and imagination by the name of positive philosophy, does not, in my opinion, separate them from those who, in order not to see the real question, search for and lick the honey. I could not imitate such as these; my imagination not being blunted like theirs, I could not artificially prevent its action. Like every man who really lives, I could not turn my eyes aside from the mice and the dragon, when I had once seen them.
The third means of escape is through strength and energy of character. It consists in destroying life when we have perceived that it is an evil and an absurdity. Only men of strong and unswerving character act thus. Understanding all the stupidity of the joke that is played with us, and understanding far better the happiness of the dead than of the living, they put an end at once to the parody of life, and bless any means of doing it – a rope round the neck, water, a knife in the heart, or a railway train. The number of those in my own class who thus act continually increases, and those who do this are generally in the prime of life, with their physical strength matured and unweakened, and with but few of the habits that undermine man's intellectual powers yet formed. I saw that this means of escape was the worthiest, and wished to make use of it.
The fourth means of escape is through weakness. It consists, though the evil and absurdity of life are well known, in continuing to drag on, though aware that nothing can come of it. People of this class of mind know that death is better than life, but have not the strength of character to act as their reason dictates, to have done with deceit and kill themselves; they seem to be waiting for something to happen. This way of escape is due solely to weakness, for if I know what is better, and it is within my reach, why not seize it? To this class of men I myself belonged."
"I found that for those who occupied the same position as myself there were four means of escape from the terrible state in which we all were.
The first means of escape is through ignorance. It consists in not perceiving and understanding that life is an evil and an absurdity. People of this class – for the greater part women, or men who are either very young or very stupid – have not understood the problem of life as it presented itself to Schopenhauer, to Solomon, and to Buddha. They see neither the dragon awaiting them, nor the mice eating through the plant to which they cling, and they taste the drops of honey. But they only lick the honey for a time; something directs their attention to the dragon and the mice, and there is an end to their tasting. From these I could learn nothing: we cannot not know what we do know.
The second means of escape is the Epicurean. It consists in, while we know the hopelessness of life, taking advantage of every good there is in it, in avoiding the sight of the dragon and mice, and in seeking the honey as best we can, especially wherever there is most of it. Solomon points out this issue from the difficulty thus: "Then I commended mirth, because a man hath no better thing under the sun, than to eat, and to drink, and to be merry: for that shall abide with him of his labor the days of his life, which God giveth him, under the sun. Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart. Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which he hath given thee under the sun, all the days of thy vanity: for that is thy portion in this life, and in thy labor which thou takest under the sun. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest."
Such is the way in which most people, who belong to the circle in which I move, reconcile themselves to their fate, and make living possible. They know more of the good than the evil of life from the circumstances of their position, and their blunted moral perceptions enable them to forget that all their advantages are accidental, and that all men cannot have harems and palaces, like Solomon; that for one man who has a thousand wives, there are thousands of men who have none, and for each palace there must be thousands of men to build it with the sweat of their brow, and that the same chance which has made me a Solomon today may make me Solomon's slave tomorrow. The dullness of their imagination enables these men to forget what destroyed the peace of the Buddha, the inevitable sickness, old age, and death, which if not today, then tomorrow, must be the end of all their pleasures.
Thus think and feel the majority of the men of our time of the upper classes. That some of them call their dullness of thought and imagination by the name of positive philosophy, does not, in my opinion, separate them from those who, in order not to see the real question, search for and lick the honey. I could not imitate such as these; my imagination not being blunted like theirs, I could not artificially prevent its action. Like every man who really lives, I could not turn my eyes aside from the mice and the dragon, when I had once seen them.
The third means of escape is through strength and energy of character. It consists in destroying life when we have perceived that it is an evil and an absurdity. Only men of strong and unswerving character act thus. Understanding all the stupidity of the joke that is played with us, and understanding far better the happiness of the dead than of the living, they put an end at once to the parody of life, and bless any means of doing it – a rope round the neck, water, a knife in the heart, or a railway train. The number of those in my own class who thus act continually increases, and those who do this are generally in the prime of life, with their physical strength matured and unweakened, and with but few of the habits that undermine man's intellectual powers yet formed. I saw that this means of escape was the worthiest, and wished to make use of it.
The fourth means of escape is through weakness. It consists, though the evil and absurdity of life are well known, in continuing to drag on, though aware that nothing can come of it. People of this class of mind know that death is better than life, but have not the strength of character to act as their reason dictates, to have done with deceit and kill themselves; they seem to be waiting for something to happen. This way of escape is due solely to weakness, for if I know what is better, and it is within my reach, why not seize it? To this class of men I myself belonged."
