Observations About the World, Part Fifty-One

Photograph of the Atlas globe

Is Life Worth It?
Monday – November 9, 2026

Never before, in the history of the world was the question of whether life was truly worth it or not more salient than now, and yes, can we truly be made to answer this question honestly? Now, some people, perhaps most notably Professor David Benatar, would make a distinction between whether or not life is worth it and whether or not life is worth starting, and if you are interested in this distinction you should read my post about antinatalism, which is an adjacent subject.

    Allow me to begin by saying that I do not believe that there is any reason for a man to feel that life is not worth living, unless there are material reasons that have compelled him to reach this conclusion, because by saying that he do not believe his own life to be worth living anymore, this man is admitting not only that his life is something quite bad, something negative; this man is also admitting that the whole or a rather substantial part of manifestation is wrong and bad. For, a learned man, a man of sincere knowledge, would know that he cannot separate, compartmentalize, his own life from the rest of the world, and so if we are to speak of this subject in a qualified manner, we must admit to ourselves that there is a rather painful but obvious contradiction here: namely the fact that life is a part of something greater, and if a man strives for something greater, perhaps merely a more comfortable material condition, then this man must also be prepared to admit to himself that some part of his life, perhaps only a hypothetical and virtual part of his life, is worth living, and one can even say that while this man may be affected truly by a kind of depression, this depression is still not profound. Besides, the whole concept of a man being able to decide whether or not a life is worth living should strike you, hopefully, as absurd and as something that no man in his right man would think, or at least no man in his right mind would be able to manipulate himself to such an extent that he now believes himself to be qualified enough to be the judge of the world, but then again we are not dealing with sane people in this regard, read "What is Mental Illness?". The amount of hubris necessary for this deceitfulness has never been seen before, but here we are and the question in the heading is now worth asking, and at any rate we must ask ourselves this in light of the current conditions of the world and in light of the hardship that we are likely to face if this question should remain unanswered, because we may be quite sure that if we are unwilling to answer this question, someone else will answer it for us, and in that event we not seemingly likely to end up on the more gracious side of life.

    Now, you may argue, here from a completely material point of view, that life simply happens to us, just as homosexuality simply appears to be happening to the homosexual, the gay, the deviant, and yes from a material point of view this is true, and surely most philistines would be perfectly able to see this, but then we have still not approached the issue from a higher point of view, and from the point of view of the great tradition, but as I mentioned above, let us cease with that dastardly modern assumption of separation, borders, and compartmentalization, read "The Problem of Borders", for life is quite inseparable from the world and even profane science would argue in favour of this position, of this truth, to a rather large extent. Are we not the universe being aware of itself when we look up at the stars at night? Well, this is at least the conclusion we must reach now that we have invited the question: is life worth it?

    Also, if you who are reading this post find yourself in a depression, read "Personal Disintegration", then you may ask yourself these kinds of questions, and you may even reach the conclusion that you must take some adverse and irreversible action to end your life and to end your suffering, but to you I must ask this: why do you believe that I or anyone else notice when you are gone, let alone care? If we are merely products of an evolutionary process, then why should we ever care for our pain, since this pain is nothing more than synapses and chemical reactions gone rogue? Now, this is one perspective and I am by no means saying that this is the only point of view, but this is one point of view and one point of view that tends to lend itself easily to people like you, and besides are you not selfish and full of egoism? I think so, and I think that your egoism is what is driving your selfish sadness for yourself and your sorry situation, and here I am not referring necessarily to people who are suffering from some deliberating disease that has brought on depression, for in that instance I would suggest that you are quite right in feeling sad, feeling sad for yourself and feeling sad for the world. Yes, you may feel sad, but the idea that the root cause of this is your own life is narrow minded and yes egocentric, as if people were not egocentric enough already, read "Preferences". Now, I need to also communicate that I do not believe that you are intelligent if you attempt to commit suicide, for only someone who is mentally ill or stupid could or would attempt this, and besides you will not win anything even if you succeed. And again, nobody will care or notice; your little stunt will simply not change the world. Yes, perhaps death is final in these sense that your immediate pain will end, but then again the pain in the world will not cease, and so in the end you are still selfish, selfish and egoistic and you only care about your own compartmentalization, which was the cause of your depression to begin with. Are you so blind, so solidified that you are completely unable to see this, you savage fanatic? Note, that I am not approaching you aggressively because I seek to agitate you; what I am doing here is attempting to penetrate your egoism, and yes this can sometimes come at the cost of a certain amount of misunderstanding.

    To get to some kind of conclusion here: is life worth it? No, if we are merely looking at life from a material point of view, then we may not conclude that this state is good nor that it is "worth it", read "What is the Most Rational Thing to Do?". However, you can always see beyond the profane, beyond the material, and beyond yourself. Unless you cannot see beyond yourself, then you will not be able to lift yourself out of your depression.

Reginald Drax (AKA, M. C. Dutt) – November 9, 2026.