Embracing the Absurd (Part 1)
By Luke Labern
What follows is essentially my philosophy: the reason I write, the reason I am who I am and the reason I hold the dreams I hold. This is part one, a philosophical treatise; an outline.
* * *
“[T]he absurd, hitherto taken as a conclusion, is [here] considered … a starting point.”
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”
There is no meaning of life.
That there is one is the core desire of humanity and it is also the greatest lie ever told. In the modern age, it is near-universally accepted that this is the case – only those who cling to religion, false hope or deluded thinking believe otherwise. The question ‘what is the meaning of life?’ has now been supplanted by the existential question: ‘what is the meaning of your life?’ It is not a question that one usually asks anyone else; it is very much an internal question. But it is one which has tremendous consequences – in fact, its consequences transcend the moment, the time, the place and the person who asks it. It is a question about the thinker: what do they want to be? Who do they want to be? It is not a question that can be answered until they have stopped living – and even then no one can truly answer it, because the only person who has the insight into the facts is finally at rest and can philosophise no longer. But this does not detract from the gravity of the question. In a world where nothing is certain and all meaning is defined by the human mind, the fact that the same mind can question itself is at first (and, if it is truly understood, at all times) shocking.
There is no God. There is no fate. There is no objective morality and there are no right or wrong ways to define meaning for oneself. And at this point we might spot the inherent beauty of this situation (although it is very easy to be overwhelmed by these facts) in that we are free – free to define ourselves. We can measure our progress as people according to our own standards – not as cookie cutter moulds which have blighted humanity in various ways. Freedom is the new religion.
Of course, with freedom comes anxiety. The fact that we are able to define ourselves is coupled with the serious implication that if we go wrong, or make a mistake, that that is our responsibility to. Our successes and our failures are all attributable to us. A wasted life is a life wasted by choice (philosophically speaking, excluding cases of murder, slavery, and other dastardly circumstances) – a life in which we flourish is ours, solely ours. Man is the vehicle and the driver of his own fate, not subject to the laws of an overbearing God with obscure and archaic commands.
But there is an undercurrent which threatens to ‘undermine’ us, as Camus puts it: as we have seen, whether we achieve what we want with our lives could only be answered after our death – and when we are dead, we will be unable to find out the results. It is akin to fighting in a war: incredible sacrifices are made over a brutal struggle, sapping emotional, physical and philosophical strength – but imagine that the solider who has fought so valiantly dies the on the day the war his won. He never knows the result, he only knows the struggle that he dedicated himself to. This gives a sense of the absurdity of life: we march through each day and night, never ceasing, in the hope that the war will be won – but we can never take part in the spoils. Why? Because the very moment the war is won is at our death.
For many, this absurdity really does ‘undermine’ them: they find themselves swimming in an unidentified body of water, always looking for a shore. Their childhood, perhaps, instills in them the sense that there is a beacon in the distance – but as soon as they head towards it, dreaming of the port they might find, they reflect on the nature of life and of mortality, of absurdity – and a current pulls them in the opposite direction.
Worse, it pulls them under.
This is the feeling of the absurd – the knowledge that the goals and dreams we hold will die along with the rest of us when we are no longer conscious. And this can give way to a nihilism, a darkness, even a hatred. The world looks bleak: what we enjoyed no longer stimulates us; our relationships crumble as we obsess about their futility – we give up as the cloud of melancholy descends upon us. Some never escape – some commit suicide.
But this is only one option. This is to succumb to the absurd, but there is another option – to embrace it.
Camus describes it in terms of the Myth of Sisyphus: Sisyphus’ life consists of continually rolling a huge boulder to the top of a hill – this requires all of his strength, his endurance and effort – only for it to roll to the bottom as soon as he reaches its peak. He believes that ‘the struggle itself is enough to fill a man’s heart’, that Sisyphus lets out an existential grin as he watches it roll to the bottom – this is Sisyphus’ meaning – his job, his role, his quest – and he is exemplar at it. Sisyphus is the absurd hero: suicide is not an option. He simply repeats the process all over again, engaging the struggle and when his well-earnt respite comes (in the form of watching the boulder roll back down again and following it at a leisurely pace) he admires life and all that it is to be alive.
So too we can be absurd heroes and heroines by following this allegory: we can embrace the burden of existence, the necessary pain of loss, regret, failure and appreciate those great moments all the more: falling in love; a kiss, a smile; laughter; camaraderie; family – the fact we are here at all. We can still engage in science – all the more so – and we can improve our lives with this knowledge; we can engage in the arts, appreciate beauty and improve ourselves. We can restore heroism from a romantic notion to a reality and live life for what it is: a transient moment of consciousness, (equal parts) pleasure and pain, beauty and discordance … intensity.
I cannot see a counter argument: suicide is the other option, or we can lie to ourselves (Sartre calls this ‘bad faith’) by adhering to a mould set out by a society which is certainly successful in some respects, but not philosophically – the two are completely at odds. (You might say that philosophy undermines the organisation of society.) We can believe in Gods that aren’t there, or take certain things for true which simply aren’t – or we can live life as I have described, as heroes who embrace the absurd.
* * *
Of course, what I have described, if true, is a universal fact about humanity – but it is a modern development. It relied on evolution for us to even exist, brains complex enough for language and all the subsequent revolutions in human understanding (ranging from the discovery of fire to our need for a God to unite us to the technology-driven, largely secular time we live in now) and certain thinkers to put describe the situation so beautifully. Whilst it would be best to try and give timeless examples of the absurd hero, this simply is not possible – literature must deal with the specific and let the reader extrapolate the universal.
Thus it was Camus, Sartre and the other existentialists (Kierkegaard and others before them) who laid the groundwork and it is for future philosopher-writers to give current examples of their time, taking into account shifts in religious belief, laws, technological and scientific advancements and other major world events.
It is for me to give example and enunciate how we might embrace the absurd in this, the twenty-first century – for the present -- this body, this mind, this life -- is all I have.
Of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
* * *
Embracing the Absurd
Or: Labernism
By Luke Labern
“[T]he absurd, hitherto taken as a conclusion, is [here] considered … a starting point.”
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy.”
- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus
I
There is no meaning of life.
That there is one is the core desire of humanity and it is also the greatest lie ever told. In the modern age, it is near-universally accepted that this is the case – only those who cling to religion, false hope or deluded thinking believe otherwise. The question ‘what is the meaning of life?’ has now been supplanted by the existential question: ‘what is the meaning of your life?’ It is not a question that one usually asks anyone else; it is very much an internal question. But it is one which has tremendous consequences – in fact, its consequences transcend the moment, the time, the place and the person who asks it. It is a question about the thinker: what do they want to be? Who do they want to be? It is not a question that can be answered until they have stopped living – and even then no one can truly answer it, because the only person who has the insight into the facts is finally at rest and can philosophise no longer. But this does not detract from the gravity of the question. In a world where nothing is certain and all meaning is defined by the human mind, the fact that the same mind can question itself is at first (and, if it is truly understood, at all times) shocking.
There is no God. There is no fate. There is no objective morality and there are no right or wrong ways to define meaning for oneself. And at this point we might spot the inherent beauty of this situation (although it is very easy to be overwhelmed by these facts) in that we are free – free to define ourselves. We can measure our progress as people according to our own standards – not as cookie cutter moulds which have blighted humanity in various ways. Freedom is the new religion.
Of course, with freedom comes anxiety. The fact that we are able to define ourselves is coupled with the serious implication that if we go wrong, or make a mistake, that that is our responsibility to. Our successes and our failures are all attributable to us. A wasted life is a life wasted by choice (philosophically speaking, excluding cases of murder, slavery, and other dastardly circumstances) – a life in which we flourish is ours, solely ours. Man is the vehicle and the driver of his own fate, not subject to the laws of an overbearing God with obscure and archaic commands.
But there is an undercurrent which threatens to ‘undermine’ us, as Camus puts it: as we have seen, whether we achieve what we want with our lives could only be answered after our death – and when we are dead, we will be unable to find out the results. It is akin to fighting in a war: incredible sacrifices are made over a brutal struggle, sapping emotional, physical and philosophical strength – but imagine that the solider who has fought so valiantly dies the on the day the war his won. He never knows the result, he only knows the struggle that he dedicated himself to. This gives a sense of the absurdity of life: we march through each day and night, never ceasing, in the hope that the war will be won – but we can never take part in the spoils. Why? Because the very moment the war is won is at our death.
For many, this absurdity really does ‘undermine’ them: they find themselves swimming in an unidentified body of water, always looking for a shore. Their childhood, perhaps, instills in them the sense that there is a beacon in the distance – but as soon as they head towards it, dreaming of the port they might find, they reflect on the nature of life and of mortality, of absurdity – and a current pulls them in the opposite direction.
Worse, it pulls them under.
This is the feeling of the absurd – the knowledge that the goals and dreams we hold will die along with the rest of us when we are no longer conscious. And this can give way to a nihilism, a darkness, even a hatred. The world looks bleak: what we enjoyed no longer stimulates us; our relationships crumble as we obsess about their futility – we give up as the cloud of melancholy descends upon us. Some never escape – some commit suicide.
But this is only one option. This is to succumb to the absurd, but there is another option – to embrace it.
Camus describes it in terms of the Myth of Sisyphus: Sisyphus’ life consists of continually rolling a huge boulder to the top of a hill – this requires all of his strength, his endurance and effort – only for it to roll to the bottom as soon as he reaches its peak. He believes that ‘the struggle itself is enough to fill a man’s heart’, that Sisyphus lets out an existential grin as he watches it roll to the bottom – this is Sisyphus’ meaning – his job, his role, his quest – and he is exemplar at it. Sisyphus is the absurd hero: suicide is not an option. He simply repeats the process all over again, engaging the struggle and when his well-earnt respite comes (in the form of watching the boulder roll back down again and following it at a leisurely pace) he admires life and all that it is to be alive.
So too we can be absurd heroes and heroines by following this allegory: we can embrace the burden of existence, the necessary pain of loss, regret, failure and appreciate those great moments all the more: falling in love; a kiss, a smile; laughter; camaraderie; family – the fact we are here at all. We can still engage in science – all the more so – and we can improve our lives with this knowledge; we can engage in the arts, appreciate beauty and improve ourselves. We can restore heroism from a romantic notion to a reality and live life for what it is: a transient moment of consciousness, (equal parts) pleasure and pain, beauty and discordance … intensity.
I cannot see a counter argument: suicide is the other option, or we can lie to ourselves (Sartre calls this ‘bad faith’) by adhering to a mould set out by a society which is certainly successful in some respects, but not philosophically – the two are completely at odds. (You might say that philosophy undermines the organisation of society.) We can believe in Gods that aren’t there, or take certain things for true which simply aren’t – or we can live life as I have described, as heroes who embrace the absurd.
* * *
Of course, what I have described, if true, is a universal fact about humanity – but it is a modern development. It relied on evolution for us to even exist, brains complex enough for language and all the subsequent revolutions in human understanding (ranging from the discovery of fire to our need for a God to unite us to the technology-driven, largely secular time we live in now) and certain thinkers to put describe the situation so beautifully. Whilst it would be best to try and give timeless examples of the absurd hero, this simply is not possible – literature must deal with the specific and let the reader extrapolate the universal.
Thus it was Camus, Sartre and the other existentialists (Kierkegaard and others before them) who laid the groundwork and it is for future philosopher-writers to give current examples of their time, taking into account shifts in religious belief, laws, technological and scientific advancements and other major world events.
It is for me to give example and enunciate how we might embrace the absurd in this, the twenty-first century – for the present -- this body, this mind, this life -- is all I have.
Of course, I wouldn’t have it any other way.
A Short Story,
Published 11 January 2012
Published 11 January 2012