If you die in an accident, or unexpectedly, or by violence, or in police or state custody, or by suicide, or in a fire, or if no doctor is prepared to sign a certificate stating that you have died of natural causes, your death is called a reportable death.
Your body is taken to the mortuary, where you enter the jurisdiction of the coroner. He, on behalf of the people of New South Wales, wants to know exactly why you died. And you stay there until the cause of your death has been established, in most cases by means of an autopsy.
This week's funeral will not be the usual "what you see is what you get" body in box, box in hole, earth on top. It had been delayed by three weeks while the coroner established the cause of death even though we all knew that it had been a very violent suicide, a permanent solution to what may have been only a temporary problem - but what problem?
We knew the dead person and yet it seems we didn't know him at all - nor did his equally shocked wife - or we would have known something of his state of mind - or would we? As Albert Camus writes in his essay, "There are many causes for a suicide, and generally the most obvious ones were not the most powerful. Rarely is suicide committed through reflection. What sets off the crisis is almost always unverifiable."
"It is hard to fix the precise instant, the subtle step when the mind opted for death, it is easier to deduce from the act itself the consequences it implies. In a sense, and as in melodrama, killing yourself amounts to confessing. It is confessing that life is too much for you or that you do not understand it ... It is merely confessing that that 'is not worth the trouble'."
"It happens that the stage sets collapse. Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday [no five-day-week yet when Camus wrote his philosophy of the absurd, "The Myth of Sisyphus", in 1942] according to the same rhythm – this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the 'why' arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement."
Therefore, Camus argues, the meaning of life is the most urgent of questions. How to answer it? He suggests two methods to arrive at the answer: the evidence-based logic "If life is not worth living, then we'd better die" which La Palisse was famous for, or to find meaning in the meaningless, as did Don Quixote who invented his own absurdities, or, closer to home, as do people who find meaning in raising their children, forgetting that those lifes will be just as meaningless as their own.
"The human condition is characterized by the probability of suffering and the certainty of death — a fate which human reason cannot accept as reasonable ... All healthy men having thought of their own suicide, it can be seen, without further explanation, that there is a direct connection between this feeling and the longing for death ... Men who die by their own hand consequently follow to its conclusion their emotional inclination."
And he continues, "Living, naturally, is never easy. You continue making the gestures commanded by existence, for many reasons, the first of which is habit. Dying voluntarily implies that you have recognized, even instinctively, the ridiculous character of that habit, the absence of any profound reason for living, the insane character of that daily agitation, and the uselessness of suffering", but, he concludes, "at this point the problem is reversed. It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning ... Living is keeping the absurd alive."
Some people believe that suicide is an act of cowardice, that it doesn't stop the pain but just gives it to someone else. Is it an act of cowardice or courage? It is a futile question because we don't know what goes on at that subtle moment when a man glances backward over his life.
We can only hope that at that subtle moment he realises that he only has one reality - life. And he must live it. He can only live it by accepting its limits and by living it fully. He has a duty to be happy.
For me, the absurdity continues and the rock keeps rolling as I read "The Myth of Sisyphus". As Camus wrote, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy".
