My favorite part of the Bible is Ecclesiastes.
The Preacher, the son of King David, speaks to us, and what he has to say is pure blasphemy. How his text sneaked into the Bible will, I’m afraid, remain unclear forever.
Reading it is a great antidepressant. But there are plenty of better reasons to read it.
The Preacher claims that everything is vanity, that the rivers run into the sea without the sea ever getting full, and yet his speech cannot be called In Praise of Laziness, or Get On With Your Life And Die.
After pointing out that everything we do is senseless and useless and comes close to sheer absurdity, he goes on to say, “Live joyfully with the wife whom thou lovest all the days of the life of thy vanity, which He hath given thee under the sun.”
And a few sentences later he claims, “Truly the light is sweet, and a pleasant thing it is for the eyes to behold the sun.” This is, for the Bible, quite a statement. One can find more news about crime and punishment in the Holy Book than afterthoughts on sunlight.
So after the Preacher shows us the victory of nothingness on the Western and the Eastern fronts, he gives us comfort by telling us about the sweetness of light.
This is his great invention, and I think every author, and every reader for that matter, should from time to time go back to him to get acquainted with the joyful sadness of the Preacher.
Some people might think I suddenly turned religious. Not at all.
I would add that the Preacher offers us one of the better arguments against God. The other good argument is the Epicurean one: It doesn’t matter if God exists or not. He doesn’t make us happy. And we are not making him very happy.
Divorce is the reasonable thing to do.