Making sense

by Sam Zanahar

Version 2.4, March 2010

I have not elected to be alive. At best, I have been unintended; the product of an accident. Or worse, I have been planned, not for my benefit, but to add pleasure to the life of my parents.

If I would have had a choice, I would have elected not to be born. I believe that the greatest favor parents can do their children is to abort them in the first few days after they have been conceived. I am of this opinion because it is evident that life, for every living being, brings much more pain and suffering than it does bring pleasure.

If we, as human beings, were fully rational we would hurry to commit suicide a quickly as possible, in an as comfortable a manner as possible. Sleeping tablets or a bullet into the head. Whatever is fast, or at least painless.

Alas, we are not rational beings, but slaves of nature. We are not built with an intrinsic ability to opt out. Rather, our instincts determine that we toil along. Even during terminal suffering, we clinch to life, always hoping for another, a better day.

I have a lot of respect for those who commit suicide for rational, philosophical reasons, and even for those who do it in despair (which is much more common).

Great men have committed suicide on a rational basis when they assumed that life no longer had much in store for them. Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway ...

While committing suicide may be the most sensible solution anytime in our lives, the question is for those of us who do not have the courage to proceed (like me): what else to do with one's life?

I am not into any of the traditional options: I can't find any solace in any religion, not even Buddhism. I do not live to procreate. Children cannot be the essence of my life.

I also am not dedicated to the good of my fellow humans (no political career for me), and I do not live for the sake of art or literature.

Actually, I don't believe that there is anything that would truly be worth living for. But those of us who do not have the courage to do what would be right (to commit suicide) find themselves in the quagmire that they have to do something else with their lives.

And the best solution for us still is: at least enjoy our sexuality. For when we are carried on the wave of an orgasm, we at least can forget the senselessness of it all.

Sexual philosophy

Sexual satisfaction and death
Optimal love and sex, and a gentle death, instead of a god (1.4)
Reader contribution on morphine
  German: Optimale Liebe und optimaler Sex, und ein sanfter Tod, statt eines Gottes (1.0)
  Italian: Ottimi orgasmi e una morte delicata, invece di Dio (1.0)
  Italian: Ottimi orgasmi e una morte delicata, invece di Dio (1.3)

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Advice for women

Advice for women in poor countries
My advice to young women in Third World cities (1.3)
  Dutch: Mijn advies aan jonge vrouwen in derde wereld
  steden (1.0)
What is your virginity? (1.0)
  Simplified Chinese: 贞操与女人 (1.0)
  Bahasa Indonesia: Apakah itu Keperawanan Anda? (1.0)

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Advice for men

Competing for sexual success
Sexual competition (1.0)
Competing rationally in an irrational world (1.2)

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About the author

Biographical note (4.1)
Introduction to my work (1.3)
How I view myself (1.6)
Drafts and version numbers (1.3)
To write or not to write (1.5)

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