Emil Cioran's "The Trouble With Being Born" is a brilliant reflection on mortality, for the schools of thought that think about death it should be a seminal work. It should also be required reading for anyone who is interested in existential philosophy because of the way it collapses in on its central point immediately and refuses to move away from it, revealing more subtle truths and true concepts of optimism in the process.
The central argument in the book is in the title, that the problem is not that we die, but that we are born to begin with. Immediately the mind might start making neural connections to previous readings- in fact during much of the book I was thinking of all religions. The whole goal of Buddhism, the height of attainment is, in fact, to cease to exist, or be what you were before birth, which is Nirvana. But even the bible and the concept of "Original Sin" begin with this same precept, that our problems are the mark of what we are born into, and that the issues began before we ever became conscious of them.
It touches a bit on the ideas of deconstruction, surrealism and postmodernism, but it doesn't go all the way there. C.S. Lewis would say there are two types of writers, the Tao or the natural order, the groundwork, or something that attempts to obfuscate that natural order. This book would fall into the latter since it's a play on those concepts. In the same way Nietchze saw the natural world and attempted to project a subversion onto it, so does Cioran, but it works because these are modern writers viewing things through a modern lens.
Since the book is entirely aphorisms, it may seem to be novelty. But I think making the book only aphorisms reveals more about his point. It as though you were to take a lengthy suicide note, cut it up and put the pieces out of order. Each statement makes more sense and contributes to the whole because we're not concerned about the flow but just what he's generally saying. And while at times it seems like he's trying to be too clever for his own good, there is a small amount of peerless optimism that creeps through all of it and makes the writing more beautiful.
It might be the contrast between the juvenile style and the mature boredom with existence itself that makes the points seem more sincere. I think somewhat of Alan Watts' writing but with a more depressive tone. You could say that since our problems begin at birth we simply have no problems, that it is our beleaguered coming into being having no meaning that creates our freedom. And there is also a stark awareness, no more knowledge or coming into being will solve the human dilemma, because the dilemma started when we started. He touches on some deeper truths only as he exhales from each nihilistic refrain.
My two favorite aphorisms in the book are:
One always perishes by the self one assumes: to bear a name is to claim an exact mode of collapse.
and:
Only normal that a man should not be interested in religion but religions,
for only then will he be in a position to understand the many versions
of his spiritual collapse
It is perhaps through clever aphorism after aphorism the reader is blindsided by the truth that he continues to write and present them, which in itself could serve as a metaphor for what he is trying to accomplish. His clever one-liners are like a locomotive that never runs out of steam, and I suspect he could have written enough aphorisms to fill the library of congress if he was given enough time. That human beings often see no reason to continue and continue on is perhaps the deepest revelation in the book, regardless of what the author intended on this point. Or, as Jung would say, what you most want to know will be found where you least want to look.
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