There's a lot to life that's beautiful and worth being happy about. Love, good food, puppies... the list seems long. But there's also a dark side to life. Every one of us faces the tragedy of being born into a universe that we fear might be meaningless. An immense amount of suffering occurs every moment, yet for some reason, we don't think about it too much. We sweep the inconvenient and ugly aspects of existence under the rug, only to be occasionally confronted by them in the moments before we drift off to sleep or when we experience something truly terrible. In general, we try to avoid focusing too much on the negative. We're expected to smile in pictures, even when we're not happy. We're supposed to be content with our lives, even if we're not. We're encouraged to talk about our wins, even if we've recently suffered losses. When a friend comes to us in despair, our first instinct is to try to cheer them up. We even structure our societies around the denial of death, placing our elderly in retirement homes and hiding them away in cemeteries once they pass. Shouldn't we... not do this? I thought we all agreed that suppressing emotions is detrimental to our well-being, at least based on the prevalent themes in literature and film where characters triumph over defeat or mature through overcoming obstacles. We recognize these concepts and are eager to preach them as gospel, yet we continue to behave like devotees of the cult of optimism. That's quite a paradox. I recently came upon a thinker called Emil Cioran. Cioran is regarded as more of an existentialist than Albert Camus, the poster boy for absurdism. What's interesting about Cioran is his belief that most philosophical questions are a waste of time. Instead, he prefers to discuss existence and the human condition. Given that we're intimately aware of the good parts, Cioran argues that we should delve deeper into the darker side of the human experience. I fear that someone like Cioran might be quickly dismissed as a pessimist and generally not a productive person. When I come across a person with such a counter-cultural perspective, I can't help but think there might be some reason behind their contrarian position. It turns out, there sort of is. Cioran argues that we should face negative experiences head-on and accept them as an essential part of reality, as this approach is empowering and, dare I say, even optimistic. Let me explain. I first want to clarify that I'm proceeding with the assumption that by avoiding negative feelings, we are losing information and thus not seeing the full picture. Okay. We use various strategies to avoid negative feelings, such as reasoning them away through self-help, or distracting ourselves with media or substances. By relying on these strategies, we fail to perceive the world as it truly is. Only when we are confronted with death, like receiving a terminal cancer diagnosis, do we come face to face with its impending reality. And with this acute awareness of mortality, our life suddenly takes on a much higher resolution. I don't shy away from taboo topics. But I used to think that the subject of suicide was particularly hard. If someone on the brink came to me looking for answers, I didn't think I could logic them out of killing themselves. However, learning about Cioran's take on suicide has given me hope that this need not be the case. Cioran challenges us to think more about suicide - yet another aspect of existence that is ever present but that we're not supposed to talk about. What are we potentially missing out on by putting suicide into such a forbidden category? Let's not think of suicide as something actionable, but rather from a third-person perspective - an option one can choose, like deciding to go for a run. People typically run for a reason, perhaps to train for a marathon. Running brings them closer to that goal. So, what goal does suicide bring one closer to? You might say something like "the riddance of pain and misery". But the pain and misery have already happened. Killing yourself doesn't change that. As Cioran says, "it is not worth the bother to kill yourself because you always kill yourself too late". In a sense, only an optimist would contemplate suicide, as it's the choice made when they no longer succeed at being optimistic. A "rational" person would be intellectually dishonest if they believed that ending their life was the solution to their pain and misery. If your reason for committing suicide is the lack of a reason to live, why do you presume there's a reason to die? Let's say you've considered all of that and are still convinced that life is meaningless and that there's no point in enduring the pain and misery. Presuming that you're a genuine absurdist, in a truly absurd universe, suffering and bliss should have equal value. If you claim that the universe is entirely absurd, yet make value judgments that your suffering is something to avoid, you're faced with yet another paradox. "What really saved me was the idea of suicide. Without the idea of suicide, I would have surely killed myself." Knowing that he had the choice to pull the plug brought Cioran peace. No matter what, he wasn't trapped here. By thinking of suicide as a concept that he believed was much more connected to freedom than to any sort of last-ditch effort to end suffering in a moment of pain, he never actually committed suicide. He died of Alzheimer's disease at the age of 84. I'm not suggesting that this is how we should approach life. I just think that Cioran's philosophy can be very useful in talking someone down from the ledge. Cioran challenges us to shift our perspective on suicide. Instead of asking whether it's morally right or wrong, he encourages us to question the timing and purpose: Why now? What's the ultimate goal? Do you truly believe that ending your life will bring you closer to that objective? Why not stick around and witness the absurdity of it all? It turns out that by dismissing negative thoughts and being relentlessly optimistic, we miss out on a lot. If we had more open discussions about the darker parts of life, we might realize that the negative parts aren't as debilitating as we once feared. In fact, confronting them head-on might help us lead more fulfilling lives. And if you believe that nothing matters, why are you so convinced that your pain does? If we're being intellectually honest with ourselves, it doesn't. So, just be.