Joyful Lucidity Towards the Absurd Is a life full of suffering still worth living? Louis C.K. and Albert Camus argue that this is the question facing all of humanity. “The whole world is just made of people who didn't kill themselves today,” Louis C.K. points out. In Louis C.K.'s comedy routine, Louis C.K. 2017, he ridicules the many painful things in life in order to argue that life is characterized by meaningless hardship. Albert Camus similarly views the human experience as such, and in his work, The Myth of Sisyphus, he compares the human experience to the tragic, eternally-punished Greek figure, Sisyphus. Louis C.K. repetitively poses the question to his audience of why, in such a world, humans generally choose life over death, reflecting his own struggle with this question. Camus, through his observation that healthy men contemplate
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argues that one should consider suicide. Regarding the aforementioned man driving the tan car with the statement, Louis C.K. emphatically poses this question to the audience: “what is holding up his suicide?” (Louis C.K. 2017, 8:15-8:30). Louis C.K. sees the man driving the tan car as, like Sisyphus, entirely defined by his suffering, and urges the audience to ponder whether an existence of pure suffering is worth living. Within a society that sees discussion of suicide as a taboo, Louis C.K. gives the impression that he is baffled at this man's neglect of the obvious choice to kill himself in order to force the audience to plausibly consider this choice. Louis C.K. further plays devil's advocate and defends the choice to commit suicide by saying that “life can get very difficult, very sad, very upsetting, but you don’t have to do it...killing yourself solves all of your problems” (Louis C.K. 2017, 6:20-6:45). In this segment of his stand-up routine, Louis C.K. disassembles society's refusal to seriously consider suicide, and presents suicide as a plausible
argues that one should consider suicide. Regarding the aforementioned man driving the tan car with the statement, Louis C.K. emphatically poses this question to the audience: “what is holding up his suicide?” (Louis C.K. 2017, 8:15-8:30). Louis C.K. sees the man driving the tan car as, like Sisyphus, entirely defined by his suffering, and urges the audience to ponder whether an existence of pure suffering is worth living. Within a society that sees discussion of suicide as a taboo, Louis C.K. gives the impression that he is baffled at this man's neglect of the obvious choice to kill himself in order to force the audience to plausibly consider this choice. Louis C.K. further plays devil's advocate and defends the choice to commit suicide by saying that “life can get very difficult, very sad, very upsetting, but you don’t have to do it...killing yourself solves all of your problems” (Louis C.K. 2017, 6:20-6:45). In this segment of his stand-up routine, Louis C.K. disassembles society's refusal to seriously consider suicide, and presents suicide as a plausible