The Tragic Sense of Life

What is this relish for living, la joie de vivre, they talk about nowadays? The hunger for God, the thirst for immortality, for survival, will always stifle in us this pitiful pleasure-taking in the life that is fleeting and does not abide. It is the frenzied love of life, the love that would have life be unending, which most often leads us to long for death. ‘If I am to be altogether annihilated,’ we say to ourselves, ‘the world is finished for me, it is over. And why not let it come to an end as soon as possible, so that no new consciousness will have to come into being and suffer the tormenting deceit of a transient and apparential existence? If the illusion of life is destroyed and life for life’s sake or for the sake of others who must also die does not satisfy our soul, then what is the point of living? Death is our best release.’ And so we sing dirges to death, the never-ending respite, simply from fear of it, and call it a liberation.

Miguel de Unamuno.