An intriguing exchange between Jennifer Fulwiler, Ross Douthat and Will Wilkinson about faith and the meaning of life is highlighted by Andrew Sullivan.
The discussion recall one of the best lines in “The Sun Also Rises”:
I did not care what it was all about. All I wanted to know was how to live in it. Maybe if you found out how to live in it you learned from that what it was all about.
Having written that line, Hemingway then shot himself. (Which isn’t at all to say he hadn’t learned what it was all about.)
I’m with Emile Durkheim. Suicide is more common in cultures with lower social integration. The close integration of soldiers in combat is a social reaction to the dangers and fear involved and is in part at least an inoculation against suicide. The meaning of life is based on the closeness of the relationships to the people around you. Having just shepherded my son through the treatment for follicular lymphoma I have little doubt of it.
How again would anything that involves Ross Douche-Hat count as intriguing?