Death is inevitable

The argument

Everything we achieve in life is temporary. Biological purposes of living like survival and reproduction are easily negated by mortality. Survival is only the postponement of death, which is ultimately inescapable, and reproduction only serves to continue one's genetic lineage, which is impossible to maintain forever. Happiness as the purpose of life is also negated by death. Tolstoy draws upon an eastern fable to explain this, wherein a traveller finds himself hanging from a branch above the jaws of a dragon. Two mice, one white and one black, gnaw away at the other end of the branch. Knowing he will die, the traveller notices some drops of honey on a leaf of the branch and licks them. The dragon is death, the white and black mice are day and night bringing the traveller closer to his end, and the honey is the pleasures and happiness of life. Tolstoy, being deeply aware of his death like the traveller above the dragon, can no longer enjoy the 'honey' of life, calling the joys of life 'delusions' to distract him from the inevitability of death. In this view, life has no true purpose as anything achieved is temporary and anything experienced is merely a distraction in the path toward death.

Premises

Counter-arguments

Life is not about trying to make things which will last forever; it is about the things we do while we are alive. A life enrichened by valuable experiences and achievements is not purposeless just because it ended. Death may even be what gives life its meaning and purpose. Without death, humans would be unmotived to take any actions. Having a limited amount of time to live motivates us to live our lives more fully, otherwise, any action could be postponed forever.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise assumes that only what is permanent can matter, and never defends the assumption — which is exactly what the disagreement is about. The counter-argument holds that a purpose can be served within a life without outlasting it, and nothing here rules that out. [Rejecting P2] Tolstoy's parable illustrates a mood rather than establishing a claim, and the argument does not mention that Tolstoy himself did not stop there: the Confession moves from that despair toward an answer, so the passage is used against its author's own conclusion. Calling life's joys "delusions" also presupposes that they are worthless, which is again the point at issue. The conclusion overreaches in any case — even if survival, reproduction and happiness were all defeated by mortality, that would tell against three of this question's positions rather than establish that no purpose exists at all.