Babies and suicide

Probably an unfair title.  There isn't much literature on babies committing suicide oddly enough.  What I mean by it is I never understood the concept of suicide until I had my child.  Strange to think the concept of mortal self limitation should arise out of my blonde haired, blue-eyed bundle of joy but it did.

I always thought that if I hit rock bottom somehow (whatever rock bottom is) then, in the very least, I'd be the world's greatest stuntman or the best war photographer of the century or the first man to eat 10 gallons of cookie dough a day.  Rock bottom would, in a sense, be freeing (another topic altogether already well put together by Chuck Paluhanakanaksanahun [possibly misspelled] of Fight Club fame).  If I truly examine this, then freedom to me was no longer caring about my mortality.  My life and death was the meaningful base from which all sprung.

With the advent of my daughter, that base changed.  She added a dimension that trumped my mortality.  Her physical safety; her emotional and intellectual growth; her potential role in society; my future enjoyment in watching her grow up; her present and future dependence on me; and much, much more all represent a richer, more immediately present meaning to my existence.  In other words, although the I've always enjoyed my life and am quite fond of who I am (contrary to the self-reflective brow-beating I give myself in this blog - you hurt the ones you love), the fall to rock bottom was not truly a long one.  I was standing on the 3rd floor veranda of a beautiful summer home in San Sebastian.  With my daughter, I am standing on top of 100 Burj Khalifas ).  I'm so tall now, everything I used to know and care about is microscopic.  I understand suicide now because I could not tolerate any other view than the one my daughter gives me.  My life became richer but more fragile with the birth of my daughter.

Camus said that the one philosophical question worth asking was why not commit suicide.  It is a brilliant question that, if you truly think about it, is a difficult one to answer (the question of course being the unanswerable "what's the meaning of life?").  I say flip it on it's head: why commit suicide?  What could you have in your life that truly means more than your life?  What would die over?  (Napoleon suggested that he can make a man die over a piece of ribbon.)

Chuck: [http://chuckpalahniuk.net/]

Burj Khalifa: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burj_Khalifa]

Camus: [http://www.tameri.com/csw/exist/camus.shtm]

Philosophy and the Meaning of Life: [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/life-meaning/]

Napoleon Quotes: [http://www.military-quotes.com/Napoleon.htm]

Faith

My wife and I had a discussion yesterday about religion and faith. We live in an area where the dominant religion has an enormous impact on the government (of course, that area of religious dominance is a mere subset of a larger area of religious dominance, i.e. the U.S.). We have our grievances with this particular religion because it's dogma infringes on our lives and beliefs. Unfortunately, our irritation extends beyond the boundaries of this religion's politics into it's philosophies. In other words, because some religious asshole shits on my parade, I hate the religion.

But my system, whatever that may be, is not perfect either. And if I hope to achieve what Tyler Durden would call the "instant of perfection", I need to consider the value of other people's ...well... values.

As I said before, I am burdened by mortality. Not to jump ahead and ruin the ending, but I think it unlikely that I'll ever find an answer to my burden (hopefully just some relief). Because of the weight of this burden, I wish (if i am truly areligious, to whom or what do I wish to? So many contradictions...) I had faith. True faith provides an answer by not giving one. It says it's there but you just can't "see" it. Just trust whoever or whatever it is you have faith in. Pulling it out of the dogmatic, politicalized, business entities that we deem religions, it is quite beautiful. We are perceptually imperfect beings. We can't know everything. If there is something we need desperately (i.e. meaning, order, purpose), maybe it does exist. And if it doesn't and we have to make it up, why not create it in the hands of an extraterrestrial? Who cares where it comes from, as long as it does it's job. I wish to whatever god I believe in (we all believe in gods - the providers of truth - whether they be in the form of a white male, a multi-limbed elephant, or the scientific method), that I had faith. It would give me a reason for my mortality and lessen it's burden.

I think Kierkegaard explained faith beautifully. He dismissed the dogma and piety surrounding his beloved Christianity and boiled religion down to faith: subjective faith that can't be understood by anyone other than the practitioner him/herself. In essence, the god is you. Quite beautiful and empowering.