On Philosophical Pessimism

“Man’s life is limited to one hundred years. Night takes up half of these; one half of the remainder is absorbed by infancy and old age; the rest is passed in the midst of the sicknesses, separations and adversities which accompany life, in serving others and giving oneself up to similar occupations. Where is one to find happiness in a life that is like the foam that the agitation of the waves produces in the sea?”

These words, taken from the verses of Bhartrihari, somehow capsulizes what philosophical pessimism speaks of: life is suffering and happiness is but a dream. As Voltaire, this favorite of fortune and nature, said: “ I have been experiencing it for eighty years. I do not know of anything to do except resign myself to it, and remember that flies are born to be eaten up by the spider and men to be eaten up by grief.”

It can be said therefore that pessimism is nothing but the pathetic confirmation of the evil of this world, a desperate cry of anguish of the tortured soul.

But there definitely is dignity in the face of suffering. And this dignity lies in the acceptance of the absurdity of the sisiphusian task – a confidence in the face of the absurd end to an absurd existence. This implies that humanity will fulfill its destiny not by its own simple disappearance, but by a complete surrender of individuality to the cosmic process, so that this process can reach its aim which is the freeing of the world. It is only by a complete submission to life and its suffering, and not by a cowardly renunciation and surrender, that one will be able to contribute to the cosmic process.

But this ignores and fails to mention that there can be a higher dignity beyond man’s desperate heroic act in the face of absurdity, that there can be something nobler than the acceptance of suffering. What can be nobler than the acceptance of suffering? This we believe is succinctly expressed by the Stoics when they proclaimed that our real happiness consists in virtue and that the realization of this happiness is beyond human strength. Also, Plato, who admitted that terrestrial existence is essentially imperfect and the pleasures of this world sheer absences of pain nonetheless admitted the World of Ideas which we can reach by our own efforts, enlightened by Reason. In the same manner, Christianity which at all times preaches the “vanity” of terrestrial joys, likewise speaks of heaven and of the eternal beatitude which is in heaven reserved for man.

Moreover, we observe that the contention that the essence of life is suffering is contrary to experience. This is because in spite of the unquestionable miseries which are inherent to terrestrial life, the majority of mortals decidedly prefer existence to non-existence. Nature does not recommend pessimism.

The fear of death, a senseless, irrational but for man more dreadful than all suffering, is only the counterpart of the will to live.