Aspire, you said.
Aspire to what?
Being an autonomous human being with dreams and a satisfying, lucrative career?
Here’s the thing. I cannot be autonomous. If I were truly autonomous, I would have killed myself already. The only thing stopping me is the thought of family discovering my dead body and being severely traumatised. That would be severely selfish of me. It would be almost evil for me to inflict the kind of pain that I know they will feel.
It goes against the grain of my being a human being.
That is why this is a paradox. A complete paradox. I cannot see a way out.
–
I cannot be happy. I know that I want a family of my own if I want to be happy.
Yet creating other human beings and knowing that they will suffer is also an evil thing to me. We get hurt unknowingly, then we hurt others unknowingly.
The people around you might not tell you this but they bawl it out in therapy or when they’re alone. The hurt can be so incredible.
The clincher in being a human is that we think that when we socialise, we get to understand each other better or at least form a mutual connection.
The truth is that the perception of that connection is always different on both ends. Our minds prime us for inherent isolation. There are only be one pair of eyes with a particular set of experiences behind at one place at a time, which means each of us is alone in our experience even during socialisation.
That’s why it’s such a paradox. I know that there will be grief for others once I have carried a suicide through, and I brace myself against that, hesitate, desist. But it’s also true that by the time I am dead I will not be capable of perceiving their reaction.
Fucking mind.
6 comments
Death Metal
So many issues in one post!
You could adopt. All the happiness of raising a family (minus the arbitrary genetic link), without the guilt of bringing another person into existence.
I waver back and forth on whether continuing the species is a good or evil act. It’s undeniable that humans have an extraordinary capacity for suffering, much of which is never acknowledged. However, it’s hard to ignore the fact that many ultimately feel their suffering is worthwhile, and find a large degree of fulfillment in partners, families, and creative acts.
Where I end up on this is that existence has the capacity to be so much better than it currently is. Much of the suffering we endure and cause each other is needless. It could be avoided, if only we dedicated the resources and political will necessary to change society. Many of our physical limitations can be overcome by scientific progress. The harms we like to cause one another can be reduced through education and growing understanding of the mind.
And that’s before you even take into account the possibilities of artificial intelligence, to create new kinds of beings, capable of experiencing the joys of existence without it’s dizzying lows. Who knows what life could become, if we all dedicated ourselves to improving it.
So I’m not sure we have a moral duty to not bring others into existence. The potential for suffering doesn’t negate the potential for happiness. In fact, if anything I’d say our duty was to work to make the world as pleasant as possible for future beings, so that positive potential can be realized.
I too feel that leaving my family in such a way would be wrong. I cannot convince myself that the suffering I experience in life outweighs that which they would endure if I ended it. One person experiencing depression/despair does not justify the creation of similar feelings in 2 or 3 others. When I am capable of looking beyond my own suffering, I realize this.
While you can never be sure how another perceives an interaction (or even that they have a mind at all), there’s no reason to think that we can’t enjoy common experiences. Though every mind is alone, the evidence of how we are linked is always there.
So many issues in one post!
You could adopt. All the happiness of raising a family (minus the arbitrary genetic link), without the guilt of bringing another person into existence.
I waver back and forth on whether continuing the species is a good or evil act. It’s undeniable that humans have an extraordinary capacity for suffering, much of which is never acknowledged. However, it’s hard to ignore the fact that many ultimately feel their suffering is worthwhile, and find a large degree of fulfillment in relationships, families, and creative acts.
Where I end up on this is that existence has the capacity to be so much better than it currently is. Much of the suffering we endure and cause each other is needless. It could be avoided, if only we dedicated the resources and political will necessary to change society. Many of our physical limitations can be overcome by scientific progress. The harms we like to cause one another can be reduced through education and growing understanding of the mind.
And that’s before you even take into account the possibilities of artificial intelligence, to create new kinds of beings, capable of experiencing the joys of existence without it’s dizzying lows. Who knows what life could become, if we all dedicated ourselves to improving it.
So I’m not sure we have a moral duty to not bring others into existence. The potential for suffering doesn’t negate the potential for happiness. In fact, if anything I’d say our duty was to work to make the world as pleasant as possible for future beings, so that positive potential can be realized.
I too feel that leaving my family in such a way would be wrong. I cannot convince myself that the suffering I experience in life outweighs that which they would endure if I ended it. One person experiencing depression/despair does not justify the creation of similar feelings in 2 or 3 others. When I am capable of looking beyond my own suffering, I realize this.
While you can never be sure how another perceives an interaction (or even that they have a mind at all), there’s no reason to think that we can’t enjoy common experiences. Though every mind is alone, the evidence of how we are linked is always there.
Thank you for your thoughtful words. It makes me think.
There’s hope in your words.
It’s can hard to maintain that hope when you’re caught up in your own suffering. But on the rare occasions when I’m able to step back slightly, that’s where I end up.
*it can be hard