Is Life Worth Living? Depends on the Liver

 William James' Is Life Worth Living? is an essay that attempts to answer an age old question that no one ever seems to have a succinct response to, or least one that satisfies whoever is asking.  If you care to read the essay before I provide my own analysis and interpretation, you can find it here. 

James opens the essay with a not so funny joke, "It depends on the liver," that was a popular saying in newspapers when a book with this same title was published fifteen years before James' essay. While a little silly, this sums up all that James will move on to say about this question. The pessimist verses the optimist is an aspect of this problem as well, to touch on the optimistic point of view James quotes an excerpt from one of Walt Whitman's older works, and says "the mere joy of living is so immense in Walt Whitman's veins that it abolishes the possibility of any other kind of feeling." I agree with James that there is a sort of danger to this way of thinking. There is nothing wrong with optimism and being in love with life and living itself, but to disregard the notion of evil or any kind of negativity in the world is ignorant, especially since not everyone is blessed with the optimism of Walt Whitman.

If everyone felt this way, then "is life worth living" would never be a question, because in the optimists eyes, of course it is.  William James refers to the other side of this as circular insanity, or melancholy and mania constantly succeeding each other. Suicide is often mentioned in this essay, because people who feel this way to a greater degree find suicide as a way to escape this agony, hence the question: Is life worth living? As James would say, maybe. This article expands on the "maybe", and is all around a really great summary of the essay as well as interpretation. 

As someone who was raised Catholic and later became agnostic, Christianity's views on suicide has always deeply upset me. I find comfort in William James' atheistic view on these things, but I will expand upon that later. I was taught in Catholic school from a very young age what the church's views on suicide are, and as someone who has always struggled with mental health this was never a thing of comfort. Suicide is seen as a sin and essentially a direct path to being eternally damned. When presented with this, I can't imagine this brings any semblance of comfort to people feeling hopeless, it's certainly never brought me any comfort. This argument against suicide is very much a "because I told you so" type claim, and this helps no one. As William James says, "Ordinary Christians reasoning with would-be suicides, have little to offer them beyond the usual negative " thou shalt not." God alone is master of life and death, they say, and it is a blasphemous act to anticipate his absolving hand." There is an article I read in defense of Christianity explaining that suicide isn't viewed as instant damnation, and I think it's important to read before casting immediate judgment on the Church because not everyone has these beliefs. You can find the article here. 

I do not agree with everything being said in this, but here is a video as well that explains in detail the views on this topic from the Church.

William James' own reasoning for why we shouldn't kill ourselves, is to first understand why we want to in the first place. Pessimism and despair can fit into this as well. James calls pessimism a "religious disease" because we have these questions that can never possibly be answered to our satisfaction. He goes on to talk about the question of science versus religion, or rather nature, and how this battle is ultimately meaningless because they exist together. To overcome one's pessimism, James says we must find a new way to think and see the world. If you have a largely scientific view of the world, you must not allow this to make you arrogant and think you know everything that there is to know. Accepting that there is still mysteries to be solved and that what you consider fact now could possibly change in the future allows you greater peace. Accepting that there are things we as people may never know is another step to overcoming this pessimism.

Coming back to James' idea of "maybe", by believing things, we make them true for ourselves. If we believe life isn't worth living and take our own lives, that belief became true. Similarly, believing that life is indeed worth living and that there could possibly be this mystical being and world that exists beyond us, can make it true. Because does it matter if any of that really is technically true, just as long as it brings you comfort and allows you to find joy day to day? Whose to say that you believing in something doesn't make it true? Deciding to believe in something, in the maybe, is a simple step that can change your entire outlook on life as a whole. 

This outlook reminds me somewhat of Albert Camus' philosophy and finding comfort in the meaninglessness of life. Camus says that we need to create our own meaning, and that accepting the absurdity of life allows us to find meaning within the meaninglessness. Maybe the struggle towards meaning is our purpose, and maybe expecting something outside of us or the universe itself to give us a purpose and meaning is absurd. We have to do this for ourselves, and William James' in a way says this as well. You have to choose what you believe, and choose to be optimistic. 

Reading this essay was really eye opening for me as someone who identifies as agnostic after growing up Catholic. My whole upbringing I was told what to believe and there was never really a reason or an explanation why. I had to accept it all as fact or basically be punished for it with the threat of burning in hell. William James' Is Life Worth Living explained choosing to believe in a higher power or something you could call God is beneficial if you need that kind of thing to depend on. He makes no threats, he just says, why not? If that makes your life worth it for you, then go ahead and believe in it, and if not, that's okay too.