Nagel's Perspective On Suicide

The second idea that has affected individuals to feel that their lives are meaningless is demise. Some people who think that their lives are meaningless try to think that death is the right way for them to escape from absurdity in their lives. There is no difference either to die sooner or later since in the end individuals will face death. They are aware that death is a complicated situation that can be achieved by certain factors such as aging, disease, and accidents. The only way to die easily is by committing suicide. Suicide is considered as the way to escape from suffering in this mundane world. However, suicide is not the right path to undergo in human life. People are not obligated and suggested to commit suicide just because they are
experiencing absurd in their lives. People may overcome the absurdity in the lives by putting efforts in their lives and improve their normal lives. Just as what Sisyphus does with the rock that keeps rolling back, he believes that he can achieve happiness in the end if he does not give up (1). Sometimes, absurdity can become a trigger to live life to its fullest since it motivates people to try the best they can before they die.
The absurd is actually a form of contradiction in which any attempt that individuals commit to reconcile this contradiction is an attempt to escape from this absurd. Similarly, Nagel is also against human instant perception about committing suicide as a facility to skip suffering from their lives. Some people try to commit suicide because they think that there is no option that they can choose in order to improve their lives. This situation is mostly caused by social discrepancy in society. Based on Nagel's perspective, suicide instead will make the absurdity come true. As creatures who are equipped by reasons, people should have not only choices, but also hopes. For example, in the The Stranger story, Meursault tries to rise up right after he decides to stop his intention to commit suicide. In The Stranger's story, Camus writes that even a condemned man should be given a chance to improve his life (111). Even if individuals encounter difficult problems in their lives, they should not give up and try to overcome the
difficulties. Hence, suicide is not the right decision for human to choose to escape from life suffering since suicide represents no clear path in problem solving and only lead the individuals to find absurdity in their lives even faster. Each individual has only one life and suicide itself is just a motive of representing absurdity in life. Suicide is done by those who do not have the guts and death should not be addressed easily to run from adversity. The last idea that has influenced individuals to assume that their lives are meaningless is hopeless.
Individuals have no idea if they are going to find happiness in their lives or not. Camus believes that both in Meursault and Sisyphus' stories, the absurd heroes unfortunately undergo their lives with a constant struggle, without any clear hope that there will be an improvement. Camus tells that before Meursault is about to face his execution, he is hopeless about running the way he lives (110). Meursault used to think that there is no difference between live and death. Even if he is set to be free, people will treat him badly since they acknowledge him as a murder. Individuals are tempted to question why they were born, have to work, and live in this world. They doubt the meaning of their existences as they do not believe that there is an actor behind their lives that arrange the way they live. This situation happens because the truth that these individuals usually experience is all about bitterness in human life. They feel that it is futile to achieve their goals because they benefit that they will get is only temporary. They also do not believe that striving in their lives will always guarantee that their lives will be better. However, Nagel does not believe that the source of hopelessness in human life comes from nature. Nagel thinks that human's hopeless comes from doubt that individuals usually have in their minds. Nagel's perspective is convincing since individuals
are the ones who know about themselves better that anyone else, and individuals' doubts come from no self motivation from their own minds. Individuals think that they are only small parts in this world and they are too powerless to control the world to the way they want. Many of the people realize that even though we undergo our lives optimistically, we may still think that the results will be different from our expectation. Also, as powerless creatures, we are incapable to throw away our pessimism. People are born to have conscience as a facility to improve their lives. However, this conscience unfortunately also make them hesitate to think if they can accomplish their goal of life or not. There are many people who do not strong stance, easy to give up and get influenced by negative opinions. This situation is actually the one that makes them experience failure in their lives and no motivation to enhance their lives. Hence, while Camus believes that hopeless is human life comes from the universal arrangement, Nagel considers that the discouragement come from individuals own inner minds.