The Only Way to Live

In W. Somerset Maugham’s “Of Human Bondage,” a character on his deathbed advises his friend that “the only way to live is to forget that you’re going to die.” Ever since I first read that sentence, it has kept me thinking. Could forgetting death really make a person’s life easier? Or is knowing that you will die more important for being able to live?

"Death and Life", Gustav Klimt, 1908–1911

To answer this question, let’s first try to approach that sentence in a simpler way. Let’s replace the person who forgets that he will die with a simpler prototype: a person trying to climb a long ladder. And let’s assume that this person has no idea that he could fall, and that it is with exactly this thought that he moves upward, step by step. In this case, since he does not know that the danger of falling exists, he will keep climbing quite comfortably, because there is almost no serious barrier in front of him that would stop him. Since he never considers the possibility of falling, he feels no need to look down and keeps going. However exhausted and tired he gets, he will consider himself obliged to keep climbing the ladder, because he believes no other possibility exists. In other words, this person, who thinks the only thing that exists for him is to continue on his way, will ignore the obstacles in front of him and try with all his strength to keep going.

Now let’s try to describe, with the same way of thinking, the situation of a person who forgets that he will die. A person who does not know what death is, whatever problems and difficulties he faces, will have to confront them all and go on living, because he believes he has no option other than to continue his life. For that person, no end exists, and since surrendering to his own anguish would give him nothing but ever-growing suffering in this endless life, he must constantly struggle with his own life, and only in this way will he be able to reach a happy life. Thus, all the problems he meets will remain in the shadow of his endless life and lose all their value. And there it is: the person who forgets that he will die has no chance other than to live.

Now let’s return to the question at the beginning of this piece. Is the only way to live really to forget that you will die? However much the points above seem to support this idea at first glance, the existence of death as a concept also plays an important role in people’s lives. The death that comes at the very end leads many people to take control of the shape they give their lives. For some, the reason is belief in an afterlife; for others, it is worry about what they will leave behind after they die. And for a number of people, death means salvation from the suffering of living. In any case, there is no doubt that knowing you will die is one of the most important points in a person’s life. A person who faces many difficulties and problems throughout life tries to find consolation in the existence of death, which is inevitable at the end of every possibility. Knowing that the weight of this life they have carried for so many years will finally leave them, and that in the end they will reach eternal rest, gives people the strength to be patient under that weight.

Some people cannot bear all the anguish that existence brings and find their way out in the eternity of death, where everything ends. People who have lost all their strength on the ladder they are climbing try to escape this painful exhaustion by throwing themselves backward, into the emptiness of death, where endless rest exists. Even if they do not surrender themselves to death, people find comfort in knowing that death is ready to open its arms to them at any difficult moment of their lives. Not all such people, however much they may want to, manage to surrender themselves to death; certain things in life force them to stay alive. Such people are condemned to spend their whole lives waiting, untroubled, for the deliverance that death will bring.

Others, however, see death as an obstacle on the road to their dreams and fear the end of their happiness. For them, death is an unwanted ending. These people hold tightly to the ladder they are climbing and want to be sure they will never let go. Perhaps it is precisely for such people that the only way to live is to forget that they will die. But we must not forget that even for such people, the existence of death is what makes them value their fleeting happiness and their love of life, and protect them.

And finally, knowing that you will die is one of the greatest things that makes it possible to stand firm against the pain and suffering that life brings again and again.