Is Life Worth Living? Part 1

If someone came up to you today and told you that you would be born as someone new tomorrow but it would be completely random; where you were born, what gender, family income level, intelligence, or nationality, would you do it? I was listening to a podcast a few months ago and the guest summarized living like this: being alive is like being at a play that isn’t interesting. You will stay since you are already at the theater but you wouldn’t have come if you had this new information. I’m also a lover of questions and I am genuinely interested in hearing a variety of answers.

Nobody decided to be born on this planet. That decision was out of our hands. The decision to have you could have been made deliberately after years of saving, planning and marriage. The decision also could have been done with no saving, no planning and with the help of $2 Tequila Tuesday. Whatever the case, here we are. On this incredible planet with volcanic lightning, Mount Everest, Northern Lights and a pink lake in Australia! However, our planet also has rising sea levels, animal extinction rate scientists believe is hundreds of times above the natural baseline rate and about 17% of the Amazon being destroyed; all largely due to……us. The world is a great place made slightly less great due to humans. Would you decide to live here?

Luck has more of an affect on our lives than we give it credit for. The colour of your skin, your gender in many countries, the language you grow up with, how stunning or handsome you are, the country displayed on the front of your passport all afford you different opportunities. Your work ethic, values and general outlook will also be important but there’s a reason people call it privilege. More specifically, white privilege. Privilege to get more jobs opportunities, bank loans, better education and a positive relationship with law enforcement. Some people are just dealt a better hand than others. That does not mean that someone from a less fortunate country can’t be happier, influential or more successful than someone born in say Sweden but they are starting a few steps behind. This is also a good time to say that I am not saying life is only worth living if you are white. I am white and this is the only perspective that I have. I know being a white man in 2020 isn’t in vogue so I will try and keep my voice down.

Let’s assume that what I believe is true; that life isn’t fair and some people have been given a better lot in life. If given the chance to decide if you want to participate in the tomfoolery of planet earth, would you accept or decline this offer?

I am writing this because I am not sure what my answer is. I have many tabs open with articles that I have not yet read that I am assuming will try to convince me that life is worth living. I also assume that many people who consider suicide probably Google what I just Googled: Is life worth living? For the record, I am not considering killing myself and don’t think you should either. But given the choice that was initially denied to all of us, would you jump into the world not knowing if you will be a young girl born in Afghanistan to a family of 5 with very little income or a boy born to a king in Brunei. Is life worth living?

Is waking up for the majority of your life to work at a job you most likely feel lukewarm about worth it? Is it worth getting married and ultimately waiting for one of you to die to leave the other broken-hearted? Is it worth struggling to save money, make smart financial choices and still worry about living through your retirement? Is it worth having kids and worrying if they will make it home safe from school each day? Is it worth trying to do good in a place that is very much filled with evil? Is it worth living a life that at any point could be taken away for the most random of reasons?

Life is certainly more comfortable if you are wealthy and have more options. Having access to so many possibilities, network of contacts, the upside of life with many safety nets makes life a solid investment.

Life is more challenging in the middle-class but you aren’t struggling for water, work, shelter, money or freedom but still have many struggles. Many people live in this happy medium where their lives could be better but they could also be much, much worse.

Life is certainly the harshest and most challenging if you live in severe poverty, fear of the government, your safety or inability to be your true self. I don’t know what it’s like to not have the ability to get care if I am sick or need to leave my home because of war, religion or from a changing climate. I would assume people who are less fortunate would say life is worth living and their daily lives certainly have meaning. I bet some not insignificant percentage of people living in Burundi are happier than some citizens of Germany on a daily basis. 

But would you want to roll the dice and possibly end up living as a miner in Madagascar making $470 a month in questionable health and safety conditions? Or the possibility of being one of the estimated 24.9 million people worldwide who are human trafficked for labour or sexual exploitation? Or would not being born at all be better? Would not having to deal with sexism, racism, greed, nuclear weapons, overpopulation, energy and water depletion, pollution, injustice and corrupt governments?  Is life worth living? What would you choose if you were given the choice?

 

“If the real world were a book, it would never find a publisher. Overlong, detailed to the point of distraction-and ultimately, without a major resolution.” 

Jasper Fford 

Sources:

https://naturalhistory.si.edu/education/teaching-resources/paleontology/extinction-over-time

http://earthporm.com/7-amazing-things-wont-believe-actually-exist-nature/

https://www.humanrightsfirst.org/resource/human-trafficking-numbers