Even if receiving the most dire news from a doctor, the one question I would hope never to ask is: Why me?
For no question is more metaphysically naive and egocentric than this request not only for meaning, but for a coherent narrative that unfolds in relation specifically to one's self. This may be all too human, but it's all too shameful for a philosopher.
For a philosopher should know better than attempt to explain, justify and integrate a random event into a
personal life story, or start asking crypto-theological questions of the universe.
And even if the question is more rhetorical than anything else - a venting of natural emotion - it should still never pass the lips of a philosopher; i.e., one who always remains stoical, always refuses to take things tragically, and always favours the Warholian response when given terrible news: So what? [1]
Notes
[1] See The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B & Back Again), (Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1975), in which he writes:
"Sometimes people let the same problem make them miserable for years when they could just say, 'So what.' That's one of my favorite things to say. 'So what.' [...] I don’t know how I made it through all the years before I learned how to do that trick. It took a long time for me to learn it, but once you do, you never forget." (Ch. 7)
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