Living Courageously

To me, the title of this post is an oxymoron, because to live is to be courageous. The dialogue continues, as is fitting for a philosophical discussion. How can death not be depressing? Again, I ask the opposite, why is it depressing? So far anyone has yet to answer this question. Everyone just assumes that it is true, which is the antithesis of philosophical debate. We must question everything. Besides, regardless of how we feel about it, it is a fact that one day we will all die. Facts may invoke feelings, but by themselves they are objective and without feeling. For those relentless commentators I ask for you to explain to me why death is depressing, not just to say that it is. Otherwise the debate will have ended because I believe I will have no more to say on the subject after this post.

My view, and perhaps it is because I am more sensitive to the fact of death, is that we choose to live everyday of our lives. We have a choice to make everyday in the face of the meaningless void that threatens us, and that is to create meaning in a meaningless world. Each day (and this is more apparent to adolescents and adults more than to children) we awake and decide to live. We do not have to make this decision, in fact, it would be so much easier to give up and not do anything. When I say "live," I am not speaking of merely existing, but the fact of living, which is to say that we add our two cents to the world by the things that we do. We don't have to be great artists to add a great deal to this world, any act of creation, however small it may be, will do. This takes great courage because anything that we do could be senselessly obliterated at any moment by any random act of humanity or God. Still, we choose to do them. Why?

Regardless of the inhumanities of man, I must admire the courage to continue despite everything that has happened. Despite wars, despite natural disasters, despite disease, we continue. Not only do we get up each day and decide that suicide is just not an option (which for some of us is quite an accomplishment), we go even further and create meaning. We give birth to children that might not grow up, we give birth to ideas that might not see fruition, we give birth to art that might be destroyed and we teach future generations that this is the right path. I agree. This is what I mean by living courageously.

"Sometimes even to live is an act of courage." -Seneca
"Often the test of courage is not to die, but to live." -Vittorio Alfieri
"Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die." -G. K. Chesterton