Birth: A Camouflage Invitation to Distress -By Falokun Temitope

Birth occurs as a result of the selfish act of two consenting or non-consenting adults.

Biologically, when two opposite sexes mate, it results in the production of their kind, and that is the case with human beings and other living creatures. The existence and birth of every human kick-starts with an activity known as sexual intercourse, which occurs between an adult male and female human being. It should however be noted that the product of this activity (the baby), is never consulted nor notified before he or she gets forcefully dragged into the earth. There is no time at which the opinion of the baby is sought before summoning him or her into the world. No one asked to be born, no one requested to be brought to existence.

Practically, if the opinions of human beings were asked prior to their existence, requests will most times be declined. But since there is no such avenue, that explains the alarming increase in the rates of suicide exhibitions and attempts to exit the world.

Based on the unpleasant circumstances and miseries which encircle the lives of people today, we would undisputedly agree that if they had been consulted before birth, most people would have refused the offer to exist. This is because the human life is enmeshed with sorrowful events right from birth till death. Right from conception, the foetus is at the danger of being aborted, it is also at the risk of malformation which could have adverse and irredeemable effects on its whole life making living a hell for it. After birth, as the child grows, his life is not free from misfortunes and distress, he encounters circumstances that induce bitterness and grief which he has to keep up with, if he desires survival.

Buddha a prominent Indian philosopher conceives of the human life as a life of suffering. According to him, “birth is suffering, death is suffering, sorrow and lamentation are suffering, pain, grief and forlornness are all forms of suffering, not getting what one wants is suffering.” He further expounds that in the world, we see people with afflictions and intense agony, and beyond that, we have seen the corpse of men and women, one or two days after death, swollen up, blue-black in colour, and full of corruption, and conclude that we are also subject to afflictions and death, and cannot escape it. They are inextricable composites of human life.

Evidently, being conceived indicates the preliminary of human suffering, and this extends to the birth, life and death of every human being. Man’s birth is the ultimate criterion for pains and suffering to take hold. A baby arrives this bizarre and disastrous planet with tears and sorrow because the baby has just become aware of the unfamiliar environment in which it finds itself. Subsequently, his growth and passage on earth are tainted with extreme suffering- anxiety, restriction of freedom, societal dictates and pressures, bitter enmity, war, failure, poverty, sickness, death of relatives and associates, and the eventual death of the individual. These are inherent and inevitable forms of misery which pervade the sojourn of man on earth. Pains, bitterness and grief are intrinsic aspects of man’s life from which he cannot be excused. It is therefore no gainsaying that “every living human being is naturally inclined to drink from an incessant river of distress and discomfort.”

Putting all things aside, trying to imagine if we never came to the earth, never existed, never came to be. On this note, we conceive ourselves as nothing; intangible, imperceptible and indefinable; we are nowhere. A profound assessment on this will project that we are absolutely indifferent, unconcerned and inapprehensive of the problems on earth. This is because we can never be manipulated by the calamities, irregularities and troubles that occur in the universe. We are totally inapprehensive and unconcerned of nothing. Our existence requires nothing, and we do not need to be anything. There is no incentive for dynamism, we are static beings who need nothing. There are no dreams, no strife for survival, no worries, because there is no becoming. Birth is the only factor that has made us acquainted with the catastrophic issues and events occurring in the world.

However, the idea of being alive has largely been misconstrued by many people, with popular phrases such as; “life is a gift”, “life is beautiful”, some even claim that “living is a grace”, an undeserved and unmerited favour granted man, by God. It is apparent that holding positions like this is self-deceit, we are pretending and burying our heads in the sand because the facts are there to evince the disposition that the earth is not a paradise where bliss and feelings of felicity are supplied. One bitter existential truths is that “life is not a gift”, those absent are not missing anything, or perhaps they miss the miseries and pains that envelope man’s whole life in the course of his sojourn on earth. Particularly, living is an absolute waste of time since death makes all human instantiations meaningless. We are condemned to die from the moment we are born into this meaningless universe, our whole existence will eventually just blow away. Every human will vanish leaving no traces, all the struggle will end in zero. The human existence does not add up. Possessions and desires daily contemplated will elude us, because they are like smoke which cannot be captured. The daily human strive is vain because everything will eventually come to nothing. So what is the essence of man’s existence? Isn’t birth after all an alluring invitation to hell?

Statements and questions on human existence are expounded by a group of philosophers known as “existentialists”. This is based on their conceptions on the absurdity and meaninglessness of human life. To broaden the scope on absurdity, existential notions demand evaluation.

THE ABSURDITY AND MEANINGLESSNESS OF HUMAN LIFE

“We are each born into a universe in which we and our world, and our actions lack any real inherent importance. This is an essential component of existentialism known as “The Absurd”. Absurdity is a technical term used to describe “the search for answers in an answerless world.” We are creatures who need meaning, but we are abandoned in a universe full of meaninglessness, so we cry into the wilderness in search of answers and get no response, but we keep crying anyway, that for an existentialist is the definition of the absurd.”

Further, many existentialists agree and argue that we cannot blame God or Satan for the way our lives are because they are anthropomorphic figments of the human mind. They were designed by man, and their submission is that “God did not create man, rather, man created God”. A popular dimension on the being of God is the claim that God supersedes being existent, because he is existence himself. This stresses the notion by Thomas Aquinas that man is limited in language to describe the being of God. God is not a being, but he is being. God alone is self-subsisting, because his existence proceeds only from himself. His essence is identical with his existence. His existence is necessary because he depends on nothing outside of himself for existence. This claim contrasts with the notions of existentialists who emphasize the indifference of God to human affairs. Other popular rejections on the existence of God include his imperceptible metaphysical nature, and the problems of evil.

With this stated and analysed, the positions of God’s interference with human affairs, and the possibility of life after death (which could give life a subsequent meaning) are totally ruled out. Therefore, death brings the human voyage to a halt, making the whole process futile.

Albert Camus, a classical existentialist, who was regarded as the “philosopher of the absurd” projected his notions on the futility of human existence in his essay,” the myth of sisyphus”. He started his essay with these lines: “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the greatest questions of philosophy.” Camus in his essay likened the human life to the activities of Sisyphus, the King of Ephyra (now known as Corinth) in Greek mythology. Sisyphus was punished by the gods for his self aggrandizing craftiness and deceitfulness by being forced to roll up an immense boulder up a hill. He struggled severally to achieve this, but before the boulder reached the top, it rolled back in perpetuity. This is practically symbolic with the human life, in pursuit of happiness, desires and bliss. The human struggle is pointless, because we cannot possibly grasp life. The struggle does not count, because all human aspirations and ambitions daily sought will eventually just slip away.

This stresses peoples’ basis for suicide, especially when one faces intolerable circumstances. Generally, if your life is filled with despair and absurdity, and you see that it is deprived of meanings, you might consider to commit suicide. Camus states, “I see many people die because they judge that life is not worth living.” Many people agree that the living project is not worth the pains and struggle. Therefore for Camus, the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions.

Besides, the urge to commit suicide gets into us when we start to think. Beginning to think is beginning to be undermined. It is only when you pause to think that you suddenly discover the absurdity of life, the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation and the uselessness of suffering. When this happens, one feels like a stranger, and the desire for a divorce between man and life sets in. There is a direct connection between this feeling and the yearn for death. Once you have reflected upon your life and its meaninglessness, you try to contemplate if such a feeling requires hope or suicide.

Camus maintained that “everything is absurd”. And if everything is futile, why not just end it? Why not just commit suicide? In fact, suicide was endorsed by stoics in antiquity. For instance, Marcus Aurelius states in “the meditations”, “if the house is smoky, quit it. Why do you think this is any trouble? Depart at once from life, not in passion, but with simplicity, freedom and modesty, doing this is one laudable thing at least in life.”

However, it is essential to note that the absurd does not absolutely dictate suicide. Suicide is attractive in the face of absurdity, but there is an alternative. Camus opines that despite the futility, one must imagine Sisyphus happy. This plausible alternative to suicide is “revolt”. The revolt implies accepting that the human life has no purpose, but one will live it all the same, knowing that everything will fall to pieces. One will carry on, despite the striking consciousness that nothing counts. The convention of living adopted by most people today actually portrays revolt.

Importantly, since suicide has widely been considered to be immoral especially by many human societies, religions, and so on, and the concept of life remains unalterably problematic, another solution has been put forward to diminish human plights. There is a suggestion by an American environmental movement known as Voluntary Human Extinction Movement (VHEMT), which was founded in 1991 by Les U. Knight. This movement calls for people to abstain from reproduction to cause the gradual voluntary extinction of the human kind. VHEMT endorses human extinction, because in their view, it would lessen environmental degradation. The group states that a decrease in the human population would prevent a significant amount of human-caused suffering. Even though the idea has been criticized on the basis that the human reproductive drive will prevent humans voluntarily seeking extinction, some academics have argued that it can reduce the human population to sustainable levels.
In sum, this essay has projected that the human life is entirely sorrowful, it is a course that is not worth the pains because it is contingent and unnecessary. It has also asserted that birth is the only factor that acquaints us with these irregularities.

Therefore, procreation, an inhumane act of sheer wickedness, should end on the basis that the human life entails nothing but severe miseries, pains, despair, forlornness, and death. So apparently, the struggle is pointless and futile. The VHEMT movement is simply suggesting that we could prevent the unfortunate circumstances associated with the human condition by ending birth and procreation, and gradually, the human race will become extinct. On this note, we are saying goodbye to the world politely.