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One African proverb states that when it rains, no roof is discriminated against. It is quite right to think in such a way especially when one is speaking about something that is inevitable and has so far confronted every person without fail. I speak about death and the meaninglessness of our lives that comes in its wake. In much the same way that one cannot will the rain to stop, it is highly unlikely that it is possible for mortal men to will away death and meaninglessness with the wave of the hand or indeed any other sophisticated gesture. Since we must step outside as it rains, it is inevitable that without an umbrella (which we cannot have), one would get wet no matter what building one steps out from and no matter how dry one previously made one’s clothes. In a situation where wetness is inevitable, it would make no sense to believe that the prior state of dryness covers for the infinite moment in the rain and it would make no sense to show gallantry despite the wetness since such gallantry does not change the fact that one is wet. The best thing one can do then is to simply realise that s/he must indeed go outside, that s/he would inevitably get wet and, more poignantly, that nothing can be done about it. Beyond taking the inevitable step and accepting in one’s mind the thing I have previously just said, nothing more can be done, as further actions only lead to futility.

It is this sort of thinking that inspires what I term the “philosophy of indifference”. In trying to decipher what is the proper path, mode or mood for living with the meaninglessness of our lives, I introduce the philosophy of indifference as the proper mode of living with meaninglessness. Notice here that I do not claim that it is the only way that one can live with meaninglessness. What I mean when I consider the philosophy of indifference as the proper mode of living with meaninglessness is that I find it the most attractive of all the other modes of living with meaninglessness and I also consider it the mode that best encapsulates our existential condition. I shall explain why this is so as I delve into the concept itself in the subsequent sections. It is important to, at this juncture, contrast the stoic idea of “indifference” and the philosophy of indifference that I propose. The indifference of the stoics focused on events in life and sought to find agreeable, any turn that their lives took—whether such a turn was of value or harmful to them. The indifference I speak of, first, focuses quite specifically on the meaning of life and the attendant choice between suicide and living for living’s sake. It finds life, considered as a whole, meaningless and value-neutral. Thus, whereas it is plausible to claim that most stoics will agree that life is meaningful, agree that sometimes life is not pleasurable and that one must be indifferent either ways, the philosophy of indifference that I propound finds life meaningless, finds that meaninglessness value-neutral, and finds both suicide and living for living sake as equally viable ways of portraying indifference.

Indifference and Its Noetic Propaedeutic

In this section, the first thing I must do is unpack what I mean by “noetic propaedeutic” and how exactly I use the phrase in this work. First, I begin with the term “noetic”, which must be distinguished from “noetics” which is, generally speaking, the study of the mind and/or intellect. “Noetic”, as I use it here, refers to anything related to mental states or based on the intellect. A propaedeutic, on the other hand, refers to any preliminary knowledge, study or instruction that enables one to properly understand a certain course of study. In the sense with which I use the term here, a “propaedeutic” would refer to the preliminary ideas or principles that guide our understanding of a certain situation, state of affairs or (in the case of this work) our existential condition. Put together, “noetic propaedeutic” would, in the context of my thesis, represent the intellectual principle that directs the individual towards the proper mindset and/or attitude necessary for understanding the condition of meaninglessness that inevitably pervades our existence.

Deciding what this noetic propaedeutic should be (with regards to living with meaninglessness) is quite a simple task. The situation of life’s meaninglessness serves or should serve as the proper propaedeutic for living with meaninglessness. As I have previously suggested, neither hope (broadly construed) nor revolt nor even consolation can serve as attractive modes of living with meaninglessness, as they seem to either drag us away from the reality of our existential situation or seek to offer respite to the perceived or imagined anguish of meaninglessness—an exercise that constantly reeks of futility. Perhaps an existence that is not futile would embrace these paths as reasonable. Unfortunately, futility is something that is part and parcel of our existence since we die (Trisel 2015, Luper 2016, Attoe 2022). It, therefore, seems that the most attractive propaedeutic that we can muster subsists simply in the strong acknowledgement of the meaninglessness of our lives. In other words, the proper propaedeutic for living with meaninglessness is a constant acknowledgement of the ultimate meaninglessness of our lives and the application of that acknowledgement as a precondition that guides any decision or (in)action that affects our existence. This propaedeutic encourages the abandonment of any attempt at responding to meaninglessness—I shall explain what I mean presently.

The Philosophy of Indifference and (Not) Responding to Meaninglessness

To properly understand what I mean by responding to meaninglessness it is pertinent that I draw a sharp distinction between a “response to” meaninglessness and a “response because of” meaninglessness. To understand the distinction between the two, consider the following: suppose a person mistakenly puts his hand in a burning flame or steps on hot coal. A “response because of” is the pain one feels because of the fire. Due to the stimulus, the individual’s nerve endings fire electrochemical impulses straight to the brain. The brain, in turn, interprets this signal as pain. The pain we feel is a mental reaction because of the stimulus (i.e. the fire or hot coal). A “response to” the stimulus would generally involve the individual’s attempt at removing his or her hand from the fire. It is a “response to” because the action that accompanies it strives to remedy the situation in such a way that the ill-effects of the stimuli (for instance the burns associated with stepping on coal or putting one’s hand in the fire) cease to be a factor. Whereas a “response because of” is, ceteris paribus, an inevitable effect of the situation, it is not always the case that a “response to” that situation—i.e. removing one’s hand from the fire or jumping out of the coal—is equally as inevitable. Indeed, some situations require that the individual resist responding to the situation, even though the “response because of” that situation still remains—for instance, consider a situation where one had to put one’s hand in the fire to save a baby’s life or step on hot pieces of coal to avoid being shot by muggers.

The situation of the current existential condition of our lives is not similar to the final scenario I just painted, which required that the individual resist the urge to respond to his or her situation. The meaninglessness of our lives requires that we avoid a response to our existential condition but for different reasons altogether. In respect to the previous example, consider the following: Suppose the fire we spoke of was not a localised fire but an unlikely fire that engulfed the entire earth or that the entire earth was covered in smouldering hot pieces of coal. In such a scenario the fire is everywhere and there can be no removing of one’s hand from the fire or jumping away from the pieces of hot coal. This is obviously because one would only be removing his hand from one part of the fire to another or would be jumping from one piece of coal to another, endlessly. What the above scenario presupposes is that attempts at responding to these all-pervading stimuli are ultimately responses in futility for the mere fact that any such response always leads to the very same situation that the individual is attempting to avoid.

One can draw parallels between the scenario painted above, the condition of meaninglessness and the need for a noetic propaedeutic that does not respond to meaninglessness. Like the fire or hot coals that pervades the whole world, the inevitability of death ensures the sure-fire nothingness that the condition of being dead presupposed. It introduces us to an all-pervading meaninglessness of life that faces us head-on no matter which direction we turn to and no matter what actions we take. Thus, like the individual who cannot strive to respond to the fiery stimuli (since it engulfs him/her totally and such a striving would not change his/her condition) or delude herself into believing that the pains associated with fires are worth experiencing, we cannot actively strive to respond to the meaninglessness of our lives since meaninglessness encompasses our existence and since striving for the meaning of life will not change the condition of meaninglessness—rendering such a striving an exercise in futility.

In all this, we must not forget that unlike being engulfed in flames, the condition of meaninglessness does not necessarily imply a negative existential condition since meaninglessness is value-neutral. For most people who recognise the meaninglessness of their lives, there is some resentment for that condition and a sense of disappointment that there is ultimately nothing more to life than an inevitable death, an accompanying nothingness and ultimate meaninglessness. But this sort of thinking actually smacks of a deep pessimism that does not truly represent the condition of meaninglessness. Perhaps the disappointment such individuals feel is generally a reaction because of the incommensurability of the condition of meaninglessness and an ideal (usually an impossible ideal) wherein we locate the meaning of our lives. Indeed, one can conclude that it is perhaps the searching, expectation of, and striving for ultimate meaning, where none exists, that furnishes us with the negative value associated with existential despair that we know all too well.

The disappointment about the meaninglessness of life is seemingly tied to a different type of understanding of the world (i.e. a belief in a value-laden universe) that is not commensurate with the world as it actually is (i.e. valueless universe) (see Attoe 2022). Understanding the world as it is not only re-adjusts our understanding of it but also modifies our reactions towards the valuelessness and meaninglessness that it represents. In a valueless and meaningless world, it would be an emotional misdirection for one to express disappointment or anguish and other similar feelings rather than a neutral or non-feeling (understood here to mean an avoidance of sentiment). This indifference also involves an acknowledgement of the fact that a value-neutral and meaningless world must only always elicit a non-feeling or indifference, since value neutrality and meaninglessness should not in itself provoke either positive or negative feelings. Indeed, for the individual who walks past me in the street and is indifferent towards me—at best, glancing towards me to briefly acknowledge the impression my existence has created in his brain—it would be foolhardy for me to leap for joy because of that show of indifference or to go home sad because of it. In the same vein, reacting to the value-neutral meaninglessness that characterises our lives would be unattractive.

One can, however, point to values and moments of meaningfulness created in the world by humans. How might we respond or react to them? It is true that we do create some values, at least in our day-to-day lives but we must also ask about the place of those values or acts of meaning in relation to the overall meaninglessness of our lives. That I have love for “x” at the moment (momentary meaningfulness) does nothing to mediate the fact that my life as a whole is meaningless. If this is the case, then it would also be odd for me to claim that my love for “x” must somehow affect my indifference towards the fact that my life as a whole is meaningless. It would amount to, for instance, expecting the painkilling effect of a painkiller on an individual to somehow affect the ultimate outcome of the terminal disease affecting that individual.

Unlike revolt, which encourages some response to the situation of meaninglessness, this approach to meaninglessness acknowledges the finality of death, the futility of any response to the meaninglessness of life and the value-neutrality of meaninglessness, by not responding to the meaninglessness of life.

Unlike hope, i.e. the belief that the meaning of life exists and the quest for it remains relevant, this approach avoids the problems inherent in such a pursuit—problems that arise from the finality of death, as I have previously explained—by simply acknowledging this finality and taking that acknowledgement to its logical conclusion, viz. suicide and living for living sake. Indeed, it is the embrace of this logical conclusion that differentiates similar views about the meaninglessness of life like Nagel’s (1987) from my indifference approach.

Indifference and (Not) Living: The Question of Suicide

So, what does it mean then to live a meaningless life with the noetic propaedeutic of indifference? Well, one quote from Nietzsche encapsulates my response to the above question: “Pursue your best or your worst desires, and above all, perish!” (Nietzsche 1882, 27). An existence that is ultimately meaningless is one that seems to deny the subjective individual the need to make certain judgments about his/her existence. It is an existence that enjoins one to fully express the noetic propaedeutic of indifference—this propaedeutic being a mental acknowledgement of the condition of meaninglessness as well as a non-reactionary attitude towards the fact of life’s meaninglessness. In living one’s life, acknowledging the meaninglessness of life can adopt two modes. The first mode is through suicide and the second mode is through what I call living for living’s sake.

Any discussion about suicide, whether as it relates to indifference or any other thing for that matter, must start with a definition of what suicide is as distinguished from what it is not. A layman’s definition of suicide would describe it simply as the act of intentionally taking one’s life. Thus, the general consensus is that for a death to be ruled as suicide two factors are necessary and sufficient. First, the death of the individual must be seen as originating from the actions of the same dead or dying individual and not as a direct effect of someone else’s action and/or prompting. Second, the death of the individual must be seen as also originating from the dead or dying individual’s will and intentionality, i.e. it must result from the determination and resolve of the individual to actually want to cause his or her own death. These two factors are usually seen as essential for a death to be ruled as suicide. For Richard Brandt:

‘Suicide’ is conveniently defined…as doing something which results in one’s death, either from the intention of ending one’s life or the intention to bring about some other state of affairs (such as relief from pain) which one thinks it certain or highly probable can be achieved only by means of death or will produce death. (Brandt 1979, 460)

What can also be derived from the above definition is the idea that suicide is thought of as providing some sort of relief. This relief may subsist as relief from physical pain (for instance, if one is suffering from an excruciatingly painful cancer or other painful diseases), or mental pain (for instance, pain from the psychological effects of bullying, the death of a loved one and/or other such monumental losses) etc.

The definitions laid out above seem to capture the essence of what a suicidal death is, which includes intentionality and direct responsibility for the cause of one’s death. But there are certain instances where this definition might be misleading. In instances where an individual willingly sacrifices his/her life for the sake of others—for instance, Jesus Christ, who is thought of as sacrificing his life for mankind, or soldiers on the battlefield who are known to have sacrificed their lives for the sake of their comrades etc.—there is both intentionality and direct responsibility, but it is hard to think of such deaths as representative of suicide.

Thus, it is not always the case that every instance of intentionally causing one’s own death can be regarded as suicide. Considering this, a revision of our definition of suicide is pertinent and such a definition must take into cognisance those situations where certain instances of self-sacrifice may not be understood in the same category as suicide. I, therefore, define suicide as the deliberate and wilful cessation of one’s own life, by one’s own actions and for non-altruistic reasons. Since suicide involves self-destruction, the question that immediately becomes apparent is how suicide features in the discussion of the best mode of living with meaninglessness. Perhaps I must rephrase the language I use and instead consider suicide a possible mode of dying because of meaninglessness.

Earlier I had concluded that all reactions to meaninglessness are deeply misguided as they are not only attempted in futility, they also originate from a certain disappointment that arises from the incommensurability of the meaningless world we live in and an ideal world we hope possesses some meaning. The fact that this ideal world—where the meaning of life is thought to be hiding—does not exist enables the thinking that such feelings of disappointment are generally unfounded. These conclusions seem to question the resort to suicide as one of the modes of living with meaninglessness (understood now as dying because of meaninglessness).

Our general understanding of suicide seems to suggest that this supreme type of self-negation can only arise from a deep-rooted disappointment with life or a deep-rooted pain because of life. What this seems to suggest is that suicide is a response to certain conditions of life that are generally unpalatable to the individual who commits suicide. It would indeed be odd for one to have suicidal thoughts because s/he thinks his/her life is great—except, of course, the individual who feels guilt for having a nice life, when poverty abounds around her or if said wealth was ill-gotten—and so it seems obvious that suicide is a response to some pain or disappointment. If the preceding statements are correct, then suicide as a response to meaninglessness seems to be contrary to two fundamental ideas I had previously outlined, viz., the absence of disappointment because of the valueless nature of the world and our existence (hence the lack of need for suicide), and the principle of indifference that abhors a response to meaninglessness. While all these seem to be valid points, I think there are certain ways one might think of suicide that would enable an escape from these sorts of critiques.

Rather than accept that suicide is a response to meaninglessness, one can think of it as the most powerful expression of a response because of meaninglessness. It is by taking one’s life that the individual fully accepts the condition of meaninglessness in the strongest possible way. It is death because of knowledge. This powerful acceptance can be thought of as one logical conclusion to the acknowledgement of the meaninglessness of life—i.e. the noetic propaedeutic of indifference. Suicide then becomes a willful rush into the embrace of the nothingness that death brings, and it is in that embrace that one, by implication, falls into the arms of meaninglessness. In other words, suicide becomes the bravest and most visceral form of accepting the inevitable and acknowledging that one’s life is meaningless. It, thus, manifests itself as the noetic propaedeutic of indifference in action, rather than a cowering behind hope or some other futile attempts at defiance. In this sense, one would not think of suicide as a response to meaninglessness but rather as a physical expression of the complete acceptance of the noetic propaedeutic of indifference. It is reasonable to then say that if life as a whole was meaningful, then suicide would not be attractive since the indifference that drives it would be unnecessary. If this is true, then it is also reasonable to say that suicide need not only imply an escape, or be pursued, because life is bad, it can also be pursued because there is an absence of meaning in terms of life as a whole. The question that however requires an answer is the question of why an individual must express the acknowledgement of meaninglessness in such a powerful way and/or in such a way that is usually considered (perhaps too hastily) morally wrong. The response to this question, I suspect lies in another question: why not?

From an African point of view, suicide would involve the greatest form of abnegation of not only an individual’s life but also the individual’s life in harmony with the community. In Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, the main protagonist Okonkwo takes his own life because of his inability to understand the changes that are going on around him viz. the cowardice of his once-powerful countrymen and the humiliation from colonial justice that was expected because of his murder of a colonial government official (Achebe 2009). The repercussions of his suicide resonated throughout the fabric of his community. First, his suicide was considered an abomination to the earth goddess and so there was a need for the community to embark on certain cleansing rituals. Second, his body could only be moved by individuals who were not linked to his community since his death was a “bad” one. Third, his body had to be thrown into the evil forest without any of the burial rites or rituals expected in the death of a prominent individual. Although Achebe’s book is fictional, one can glean from it the attitude of most African towards suicide. For most (especially traditional) Africans, suicide involves a forced removal of the individual from the community to which s/he belongs, and this removal generally permits a grave distortion of the relational fabric of the community. By denying others in the community the chance of fostering a communal relationship with him/her in such a powerful manner, the individual (who has committed the suicide) is thought of as not only denying harmony but also causing discord. The latter part is perhaps grounded by the fact that for those for whom s/he had a close relationship (close friends and family members), such a death might enable physical suffering, mental suffering and even economic suffering. Thus, suicide was considered not only immoral but also a grave abomination—the graveness of which is fully expressed by the rituals involved in addressing a suicide and restructuring the community thereafter. Beyond this, the great premium placed on human life and the thinking that one’s life belonged to the community denied the individual the moral autonomy or right to suicide. Suicide, thus, mitigated against the proper functioning of the community towards harmony. To further buttress this point, Innocent Asouzu avers that:

…suicide was rare and when it did occur, it was considered an abomination and a radical form of self-abnegation and self-negation whose impact went beyond the action of the victim into the totality of his world…. It is an absolute rejection of the immense opportunities offered by a world of harmonious complements. For this reason, the traditional African speculative mind identified suicide as abominable and with it, all acts that smack on self-negation. As a negation of the complementary unity of consciousness, the Igbo committed a suicide victim, symbolically, into the state of non-being, which is represented by the evil forest. (Asouzu 2004, 178)

What can be gathered from the above is that, because of the grave consequences of committing suicide, suicide in traditional Africa was a rare occurrence. The toxic manner in which the individual (who committed suicide) disassociated and removed his/herself from the community as well as the destruction of one of the most prized assets of the community—an individual’s life—allowed for the extreme rejection of suicide as a manner of not-living. Whereas it is perhaps reasonable to argue for the right to life and the right to die—since it seems that the individual should have at least some (if not full) autonomy over his/her only innate property (I use property in the sense of a belonging or possession), i.e. his/her life—it seems that for some Africans, autonomy is void insofar as the individual’s autonomy is submerged in and lost to the community such that it is the community (interest) that invariably “owns” the individual’s life.

Thus, as a response to the “why not?” question I posed earlier, the response from African philosophers such as Asouzu is that suicide not only denies one’s community and one’s family a more robust complementary relationship that would have been occasioned by the attainment of the full normative and relational potentials of the individual, it also serves as the individual’s negation of what Asouzu terms “complementary unity of consciousness”. By removing one’s self as a missing link in the complementary chain through suicide, the individual who invests in suicide only breaks his/her society in ways that violently distort the essence of that community. One might further add that this negation of being and the embrace of non-being retards the attainment of full vitality—which can be considered as an attribute of meaning in life from an African perspective—and as such is a function of the meaninglessness that it ironically tries to avoid. Although it might be easier to present the seemingly weak argument that in suicide one only refuses to be in communion with others—something that seems far less a crime than actively striving for discord—and therefore does something that is simply not wrong, a greater problem such an argument may encounter (and indeed any argument for suicide) is the harm that suicide causes if one was, before his/her death, responsible for dependent(s). Again, although one can argue that a natural death offers the same deprivation without the label of immorality, it is also true that the subjective decision to commit suicide is an act that directly causes harm to other people, namely the individual’s dependent(s). It is difficult to offer rebuttals to these very legitimate claims and perhaps the traditional African response to the “why not?” question seems too strong.

Unfortunately, this response, in my opinion, falls under the weight of the sheer meaninglessness of life. Whereas one might consider an investment in complementary harmony as something of great value and as meaning in life, it is hardly the case that this importance escapes the finality of death and the nothingness that immediately follows it. That we venerate certain forms of meaning in life says nothing about the fact that life ultimately ends. It also says nothing of the view because death is an eternal state; that one dies today or at a later date does nothing to change the eternality of nothingness. Also, the answer to the “why not?” question given in our brief exposition of some African views of suicide offers no response to the supposition that in causing one’s death, one hastens the nothingness that is to come anyway rather than continually entertain a meaningless and often absurd existence.

A suitable answer to the “why not?” question—one that fully addresses the concerns raised above—is yet impossible and may remain so because of the inevitability of death and (at best) the boredom and the lack of meaning in an eternal life. It is in the silence from the lack of a plausible answer to the “why not?” question that I locate the legitimacy of suicide as a possible mode of living with meaninglessness (or dying because of it). More so, to live only implies to die and to die is to not exist, and soon enough, to not exist only metamorphoses to a never had been. Suicide not only aids this eventual and inevitable progression but it also seems to be a proper affirmation of the condition of life—which is ultimately lifelessness. Whereas the lack of ultimate meaning is not necessarily a bad thing, it is also, on the whole, a largely pointless affair that is sure to end in one’s demise. Now, since one’s demise is neither good nor bad, and meaning in life is good, one would think that that would always count in favour of living and perhaps the pursuit of meaning in life. However, the argument for suicide only takes effect once we begin to talk about the meaning of life. Thus, whereas the pursuit of meaning in life is a good thing and the principle of suicide should not be invoked to trump such a pursuit of moments of meaningfulness, once we begin to talk about the meaning of life, one cannot but introduce the philosophy of indifference. In other words, once we begin to think that meaning in life somehow affects (perhaps positively) the general outlook of our entire existence as a whole (meaning of life), the principle of indifference must be invoked as the grand propaedeutic. This is what gives power to the view that suicide can subsist as a mode of living with (or dying because of) meaninglessness.

So, even if one can argue that specific moments of meaningfulness only make sense within those moments themselves and beyond that—insofar as we begin to focus our gaze on the value of that moment of meaningfulness in relation to our lives as a whole—their value begins to be called into question. While it is plausible to argue that we can focus our gaze on moments of meaningfulness in our lives, I agree with Nagel (1987, 96–97) that avoiding that gaze towards the meaning of our lives as a whole is difficult, if not impossible. If this is true, then meaning in life, as something that always tips the scale to allow us to consider living as more attractive, would always be called into question as soon as we begin to consider our lives as a whole.

Now, let us not also forget that (like I have stated earlier) there are two modes of living with meaninglessness—both of which are equally valid, even though seemingly opposed. As is the case with all pointless affairs, continuing is as much a valid response as not continuing. It is just as valid because the outcome remains the same regardless. Death is always the final factor.

Indifference and Living for Living’s Sake

Is suicide the only mode of indifference? For an answer to the question, I turn again to the words of Nietzsche as I had previously stated, viz. “Pursue your best or your worst desires, and above all, perish!” (Nietzsche 1882, 27). Whereas suicide expresses a dying because of meaninglessness, it is not the case that it is impossible to live despite meaninglessness. This second part gains some legitimacy from the fact that whereas the end is perishing, one can die to attain a perishing and one can also live to attain a perishing.

What the above implies is that one can, therefore, strive for suicide or strive to live for living’s sake. A suicidal response is equally as valid a response to meaninglessness as living for living’s sake. Why equal? Well, because there is no reason not to strive for either of them insofar as the end result is an inevitable perishing. These two modes are ultimately more attractive than other modes of living with meaninglessness (such as faith and revolt) because they both embrace the character of meaninglessness in its entirety. It is in the light of the above that I introduce and explain what I mean when I talk about living for living sake as another mode of expressing indifference towards the condition of meaninglessness. I do this by explaining the various conditions that form the essence of living for living sake.

Abandonment of Hope

The very first condition I shall speak about is the abandonment of hope and this condition is one of the cardinal principles of the noetic propaedeutic of indifference in general. One can think of the abandonment of hope in two senses. First, to abandon hope is a rejection of claims that seek to draw out a meaning of life from our present understanding of meaninglessness, whether such a claim is a direct claim to a meaning of life or a proxy claim that feeds on the more readily acceptable claim of meaning in life as a route to a meaning of life. The total rejection of any claims to a meaning of life is based on the very fact of the inevitability of death and the nothingness that that presents. It is also predicated on the boredom that an immortal/eternal life would eventually entail. Even beyond this boredom, one can further claim that although the attainment of some achievement or satisfaction in life satisfies for a while, any further lack of discontent removes that sense of contentment and replaces it with the burden of a dull life. Schopenhauer expresses this claim fully when he states:

Life presents itself chiefly as a task—the task, I mean, of subsisting at all, gagner sa vie. If this is accomplished, life is a burden, and then there comes the second task of doing something with that which has been won—of warding off boredom, which, like a bird of prey, hovers over us, ready to fall wherever it sees a life secure from need. The first task is to win something; the second, to banish the feeling that it has been won; otherwise it is a burden. (Schopenhauer 1851, 10)

Thus, even if we do gain certain instances of meaning in life, such instances of meaning do not speak to the meaning of life since such a life is brought to nought by death. Even if we possessed an eternal life or an immortal life that was not boring, instances of meaning in life would be watered down through the cycle of infinite repetitions. Even if one attained something that is considered remotely close to a meaning of life, the routine (and eventual burdensomeness) of such a route to meaning creates a dull life, which eventually turns such a life into one that is not meaningful—more so since that individual would have to live with an infinite dullness. It is then clear that no matter where the individual turns s/he is faced with the fact of meaninglessness and this fact truly speaks to the meaninglessness of our accidental lives as a whole.

With all these in mind—especially with regards to my very last claim—it makes sense to claim that one should abandon all hope, as such hope bears no semblance to the true character of life, i.e., that life considered as a whole is meaningless. This ultimately leads us to the second sense in which one can think of the abandonment of hope and that is the active striving for meaningfulness. Whereas the former sense involves a mental rejection of hope, this latter sense involves the rejection of a real-world striving for the meaning of life. This striving is represented in the misplaced heroism we find in both the active striving towards a hopeful end and/or in the striving to create meaning, where there is none.

The Propaedeutic of Indifference and Living to Die

From the abandonment described above, the individual is left with nothing more than a truly indifferent attitude towards his/her existence as a whole and what I refer to as “living to die”. Living to die is a direct offspring of the abandonment of hope and the inevitability of death, nothingness and ultimate meaninglessness. Indeed, this inevitability is sanctioned by our knowledge of the fact that every birthday, hour or second we live through, we inch ever closer to our demise and the nothingness and meaninglessness that that entails. In living to die, the individual succumbs to meaninglessness and lives only in expectation of it (meaninglessness).

Living to die implies an existence of contrasts where each contrast is equally as valid as the other. It means deciding to pursue one’s desire or deciding not to do so. It involves pursuing morality and not pursuing morality, etc. It is pursuing one’s best and/or worst desires or any of those things we suppose constitute meaning in life—whatever they may be. It is however very important to note that what legitimises the freedom of pursuit earlier alluded to is the full acknowledgement of the noetic propaedeutic of indifference—the abandonment of hope—as we strive to pursue them. Its legitimacy lies in our understanding (and constant acknowledgement of this understanding) of the fact that the end-result of this pursuit is the abyss of nothingness and meaninglessness. Equally as important to this theory is the full acknowledgement of the fact that our striving is not a striving for meaningfulness or revolt or meaning through revolt, but rather, simply, living. Living to die as a mode of indifference is not a denial of life (as is the case when one adopts an ascetic lifestyle), but is a plain acceptance of our desires as facts of life, which we can pursue (since it is part and parcel of our existence and insofar as it is not a striving for the meaning of life) or decide not to pursue (since meaninglessness remains whether we decide to pursue them or not).

The Principle of Laughter

From the preceding explanations of the principle of the abandonment of hope and living to die, I introduce the last principle of the mode of living for living’s sake—the principle of laughter. This principle is influenced by Nietzsche’s (1882) philosophy and its allusions to the true state of our existential condition as people living in this world.

For most people, the hope for meaning and the striving for it are borne out of the belief that beyond the world as we know it lies an ideal that we must strive for in this world. In this ideal or in the pursuit of it lies the expected meaning of life. For Nietzsche, this belief is further reinforced by teachers, scholars and/or philosophers who pander to this hopefulness from time to time. However, as I earlier stated, one must abandon all hope or striving for the meaning of life as well as abandon any attempt at revolting against meaninglessness. The reason for this abandonment is ultimately founded on the accidental, valueless and meaningless character of our existence in the world. Unlike claims to hope, what we know about our existential condition only points to what I have just stated. Thus, the need to dismantle all claims to hope, and silence the teachers of it, is of utmost importance. Nietzsche aptly captures this point when he states:

There is no denying that in the long run each of these great teachers of a purpose was vanquished by laughter, reason and nature: the brief tragedy always changed and returned into the eternal comedy of existence, and the ‘waves of uncountable laughter’ – to cite Aeschylus – must in the end also come crashing down on the greatest of these tragedians. (Nietzsche 1882, 29)

In dismantling and abandoning hope, the individual is left alone with an understanding of the world as it is, and s/he must tailor his/her life in accordance with this new understanding of the world, hence the project of indifference that I have so far tried to present and project. Taking a step back to revisit our understanding of the world as it is enables us to discover something that would otherwise have been missed—laughter. The fact of our lives is that it is ultimately meaningless but the absurdity of our being alive and still having to live it (if one decides to live for living’s sake) often leads to despair, but this despair is only a function of the belief in hope and/or hope for meaningfulness. For those who dismantle feelings of hope from their psyche, what is left is, at worst, an indifferent character or, at best, a comic understanding of the character of our existence. Like spectators of a play in which we are actors, the philosophical step-back allows us to watch ourselves struggle from one absurdity to the other in a bid to attain ultimate meaningfulness that is non-existent, in a play that we know will ultimately come to an end. As spectators we cannot grieve over the plot—it is not a tragedy. We should only be amused by it and the absurdities therein. It is therefore important to replace the feeling of despair that is usually associated with the knowledge of our meaningless existence with laughter.

Laughter is thus taking a step back to understand the true state of our condition and at the same time finding amusement in that condition. Laughter is then some sort of transcendence—one that goes beyond the condition of meaninglessness but is at the same time true to all we have said about meaninglessness and the propaedeutic of indifference. In laughter, we find a valueless response (valueless in the sense that it offers neither hope nor stands as respite from meaninglessness) that at the same time offers a true understanding of our existential situation. Laughter is the ultimate recognition of the cosmic joke that characterises our existence. It is for this reason that one can consider laughter the more appropriate emotion as we encounter the meaninglessness of life. It is also for this reason that laughter is different from other attitudes like scorn, revolt and defiance because these attitudes presuppose a harm or a discontent that one must work against in a bid to recover meaning through the backdoor. Laughter does not recover meaning since there is no meaning of life to be recovered. When we laugh, it is not an expression of joy (since we can laugh in the most trying of times), an expression of sadness (since we can laugh in our happiest moment) or a form of revolt (since laughter does not preclude the hope/faith that undergirds revolt). It is only recognised as an appropriately valueless emotion when faced with meaninglessness and when employing the philosophy of indifference. It is meant as a replacement for existential angst.