While getting groceries I heard part of a radio interview with comedian Louis CK (who I’ve never paid much attention to) discussing his TV show “Louis” (which I’ve never watched). It was mostly just audio filler until they played a clip from his show, where a traveling companion of his mentions that he’s going to kill himself at the next stop. The suicidal companion is apparently a massive loser and is not a close friend of Louis’, yet Louis tries to talk him out of suicide. The other character comes up with this line:
“Louis, look me in the eye and tell me I’ve got one good reason to live.”
In reality, we all know that there are people who are truly losers, who have screwed up pretty much everything and have nothing to look forward to but misery (and I’m not talking about people with horrible fatal diseases). The sort of people you *don’t* want to ask you what reason they have to live, because you know that you won’t be able to come up with one apart from meaningless platitudes. And yet, you know you don’t want ’em to kill themselves, and you certainly don’t want to tell ’em, “You’re right, you’ve got no reason to go on. Just remember, it’s down the road, not across the street!”
So the response “Louis” came up with here both surprised and impressed me. After several seconds of silence, after being told to come up with a reason for a suicidal loser to keep live, Louis says…
“No.”
And really, that’s a good answer, perhaps the best of ’em. A suicidal person telling *you* to give them a reason to live is basically putting the decision of life and death in your hands, and that’s not only a heavy burden, that’s very likely a massively unwanted one. Especially if the suicidal person is, in fact, a loser. Louis follows up the refusal to play the game with more wisdom:
“I’m not playin’ that. I’m not doin’ it. I mean, f*** you, man. I got my reasons to live, I’ve worked to figure out what they are, and I’m not just handing them over to you. OK, you want a reason to live, have a drink of water and get some sleep , wake up in the morning and try again like everybody else does.”
That is, I think, just about the best *honest* answer to such a situation. I’m sure that there are psychobabble responses that therapists, doctors, priests and whatnot can use that can be very effective in talking people out of offing themselves… but this was a good, all-purpose response. It sums up in a few words, the ridiculousness of a whole lot of politics, religion and philosophy, too… far too many people get their meaning for life out of their faith in Dear Leader, or The Party, or The State, or The Ideology, or The Invisible Sky Buddy Scout Manual, 33rd Revised Edition, 14th Printing. And thus they often not only think that people who believe differently from them have no reason for their lives (or do not understand what the Real Reason is) , if their faith gets shaken their reason for living goes out the window. But the thing is… nobody can tell you what the reason for *your* life is (apart from the obvious: your mother and father made the beast with two backs some time back) other than you. That’s something you have to come up with. And it may be something you have to change.
Or you could simplify it:
Q: So, what was the purpose of life anyway?
A: Who knows? Probably some hogwash about the human spirit.