The Tragic Sense Of Life

 

This morning I was reading the American Iconoclast (The Life and Times of Eric Hoffer) by Thomas Shactman. Suddenly, a paragraph did leap out at me: On Page 76, he writes this about Hoffer: "First Things, Last Things brought Hoffer closer to being the modern Montaigne, in that it showed him continuing to revise and augment his already established tenets, and to adopt and even more conservative political posture than he had earlier embraced. But while throughout the various editions of Montaigne's Essays the author's Catholicism remained unchanged, as did his belief in the eventual triumph of good over evil, Hoffer in his book demonstrated the evolution of his viewpoint. It had become what he labeled a tragic view, built on three linked beliefs: that good and evil coexisted and that neither would ever fully triumph over the other, that there was no existence after death and therefore no discernible meaning to anyone's life beyond what one made of it, and that these understandings freed individuals to enjoy themselves in the present."

Note that Hoffer too takes a metaphysical view, that tragic sense of life. Hoffer adds to more points that I had not thought of,--factors as to why life is tragic--at least initially, but probably not finally:

7. Good and evil coexist forever, and neither triumphs over the other, so good will never totally conquer evil.

8. There is no existence after death.

Like Hoffer I think good and evil fight each other eternally, and one is not meant to conquer the other, for the world would collapse without this tension and balance, the way that Fate has arranged things, Fe’s managing the cosmic moral battle, ever carried out, every unfolding. We are to fight evil, perhaps vanquish it in our generation, for it is neither possible are acceptable that we should aspire to conquer evil eternally in all places. 

I am a believer in God, the Divine Couple, the Mother and Father. I do believe in heaven and hell in the afterlife, but do they go on forever, and are we rewarded with heaven and punished with hell forever, who knows?  I think that it is not that way, and nor is it elevating to be that way.

 

Our lives can be meaningful, and we still must do our duty even though we should enjoy ourselves somewhat too.

I am a pessimist, initially, but am an ultimate if not easy optimist in the end. There can be victory, happiness, and comprehension for the pious individuator after a lifetime of loving, thinking, growing, and creating. That lifestyle is a blessing to all.