Embrace The Absurd

Like Victor Frankl Man's Search for Meaning, "Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.", in other words, many feel that they can live with limited expectations, but they can't live without hope. What is hope? Hope is defined as to look forward to with desire and reasonable confidence, it's also a feeling of desire for something and confidence in the possibility of its fulfillment. I am not trying to be a Debbie Downer, but is hope all that? Henry Miller in a book titled The Cosmological Eye, wrote "Hope is a bad thing. It means that you are not what you want to be. It means that part of you is dead, if not all of you. It means that you entertain illusions." Friedrich Nietzsche in Human All too Human wrote "Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torment of men". How can we live without hope? We should embrace the madness as "it is what it is" this doesn't mean we become apathetic, indifferent, or passive, but engaged without expectation or hope of anything beyond this. This life may be lived without expectation or hope, because life has never promised us anything. Like being good for goodness sake, or to love truth for truth's sake, we should live life for life's sake. I think this means to survive, pass on our genes (if we're able or choose to), and participate or embrace the absurdity of life for life doesn't have any known destinations it's evolving toward. If scientific predictions are true (which they probably are), then the universe and thereby life will end in heat death. I think we may brush our teeth, exercise, take care of our health, etc. not to escape the absurd but to embrace it, this is our revolt, passion, and freedom. Like The Walking Dead we are all infected and no one will escape, yet they fight to survive for as Strand tells Nick in Fear the Walking Dead, “The only way to survive a mad world is to embrace the madness,” in other words, to make it your own. We may stop living like we got something to prove to ourselves and others, we can stop pretending to be someone we are not because it doesn’t matter and we should embrace this as it is, not escape it with the illusion of hope. As Meursault proclaimed in the Stranger “And I felt ready to live it all again too. As if that blind rage had washed me clean, rid me of hope; for the first time, in that night alive with signs and stars, I opened myself to the gentle indifference of the world. Finding it so much like myself-so like a brother, really-I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again." I think we should embrace the absurd don't try to escape it through hope or as Camus states it is "to live without appeal", in other words, stop looking over your shoulder for there is no one there who cares.

God, The Afterlife, and the meaning of Life

Does belief in god(s) gives "our" life meaning? According to Oxford Dictionary The definitive record of the English language, meaning is defined as the significance, purpose, underlying truth, etc., of something, etymologically it means to intend. I understand how the idea of an objective force which create something implies a purpose or intention. However, if we don't know what this purpose is, does it give us meaning? Or is it a purpose to the one who created it and not necessarily to what was created? I have heard god at least Jehovah, created us for a variety of reasons from caprice to having dominion over his other creation. However, as Thomas Paine once wrote unless this was revealed to me too, this is hearsay and nothing more and thus it does not give my life a meaning. Also, how does an afterlife give this life a purpose? Some argue that this life is a precursor or a reward/punishment for the next, however how does a two year old who died when he was killed by his 12 year old brother or a four-year old girl with down syndrome who was stabbed to death by her mother life has a purpose or a meaning in the next one? ( these are two examples that I found when I searched the internet with a simple phrase "two year old murdered by..." and these two incidents where some among many that the Google search found) In other words, how does a very short life span demonstrate that life has a purpose? For even if life has a purpose of what Schopenhauer called the will to live, then everything would live at least long enough to procreate? However, my examples clearly shows everyone doesn't live long enough to reproduce. Is there a purpose to life? If there isn't does this mean, that life is meaningless? I know that I don't know.

The Fate of the Universe and the Meaning of Life

I came across a website www.askphilospher.com and I was wondering if anyone asked a question about Albert Camus and the Absurd and I found an interesting question and three answers. The question was "If every life results in death, then what is the meaning of life?" There were three replies, which were:
"Peter Lipton on November 23, 2005
The meaning of life comes from what you do in your life: your activities and achievements. These are real even though you die, and would be no more real if you lived forever (though admittedly you would have time for a lot more of them).
Alexander George on November 23, 2005
If your life now has no meaning, no value or point to it, then having a lot more of such a life isn't going to improve the situation. A whole lot of nothing doesn't amount to much.
Peter S. Fosl on December 30, 2005
This is a compelling question. I remember encountering it in a powerful way reading Albert Camus's essay, "Absurd Reasoning." Recently, a student of mine broached it during a discussion we were having about the condition the universe seems to be heading towards. It seems, I'm told, that everything in the universe will ultimately degenerate into a vast, endless, more-or-less uniform, horribly cold and dark field of low-level radiation. Some call this condition, the final destination of the universe, "entropic hell."

In light of this apparent fact, the relevant question concerning the meaning of life is this: since everything we accomplish will ultimately be destroyed and degenerate into "entropic hell," what meaning can anything have?

I think there's something misleading about his question, however, something that lurks in a hidden assumption that the question makes. The question and its force rely largely on the assumption that life has meaning only if it lasts forever. In my view, this is a dubious assumption, and indeed one that plagues a good deal of our culture's thinking about value.

Far from being a necessary condition for meaning, I think that immortality and endless existence would actually undermine the meaning of life.

Consider the issue this way: would life be as meaningful or even meaningful at all if it weren't finite? That is, if we lived forever would much or anything matter to us? Perhaps the avoidance of physical pain would still matter, but simply not being in pain seems to be a relatively meaningless affair. Don't many of our projects have meaning for us just because we know that one day we and they will come to an end?

The very fragility of things gives us reason to care what happens to them, to defend them and us against harm or diminishment. When you can just start over or always have a substitute, things don't really matter. Because, however, things are finite and we know we're going to die our actions count. We'd better get things right because we're not going to get another shot.

Consider an imaginary world I call "Plentos." In Plentos people live forever, or at least as long as they wish. There are no shortages of any kind in Plentos. Every kind of food is available in limitless supply. Land of every description is available to all. No one wants for speedy, effective medical care. Everyone is omniscient.

In Plentos, life could not be meaningful."

To piggyback on the Peter Fosl's reply I thought about another analogy as well, if life was like a book, as a book have a beginning, for it to be meaningful it must have an ending. However, if a book never ended; how could one get a meaning out of a never ending story? As Dr. Fosl brings out the finite reality of something gives it its meaning. This is why Nietzsche brings out the problem of "other worldliness" of religion especially Christianity and Islam, it devalues this life by creating the idea of an afterlife. As a result, if you are certain of an afterlife would you really value your health, loved-ones, time, the environment, blow-up yourself on a bus or in a market full of people, fly airplanes into building, etc? I think so because you're certain that you'll get a second chance or a continuance of some type of existence. However, would you do this if you knew this is the one and only life you'll ever live? Think about it...

Black Socrates

Thinking about the absurd and Myth

As I have previously posted, "The Absurd" is when we rational humans try to find meaning in what appears to be an irrational or at least indifferent world. In the past there have been two traditional philosophical responses to this human condition, hope in something or someone that transcends the absurd or suicide which means you agree with the universe as being absurd but not worth living in, I think both are escapes from the absurd. Albert Camus offers a third approach of agreeing that the absurd exist and is true but instead of running away from it to face it by your revolt, your freedom, and your passion. In other words, as I have felt for long time life is its own point and you cannot improve or transcend it you can only add to what you have or to what it is. The way I like to say it "it is what it is". In other words, in spite of the world's indifference we should live our lives anyway and live it well. Another aspect of what Albert Camus calls Absurd Reasoning and what it amounts to is his argument against Rationalism. Rationalism as he presents it; is thinking that our human reason can make sense or give an explanation of this universe, this too he feel is absurd. Upon reflecting on this I learn something new, which is good, I learn that I am guilty of trying to think I can understand or use reason or rationalism to understand something that is indifferent or doesn't care to answer what my reason or rational mind begs an answer to. This is the absurd it is the confrontation or my desire for unity, clarity, for meaning, for a reason in a cold silent universe and my illusion that the universe will relent and answer. From this, I agree I should not take life too seriously because until proven otherwise, life is impermanent or temporal, and is the only one I know of, and I should live with what I know this life is, instead of what I don’t know, an unknowable afterlife. I think Joseph Campbell alluded on these themes in his writings that life is about the experience of being alive and myths are a way of describing or helping us get that experience of being alive and so the myth of Sisyphus informs me.

The Absurd

I have been studying existentialism, and I feel that what it means to me is that it is up to the individual to define the meaning of their own life via choice and take responsibility for those choices. In my research of existentialism, the author Albert Camus is often mention, as a result, I read The Stranger or the Outsider and The Plague. To get a better philosophical perspective of his thinking, I read the myth of Sisyphus over the Winter Solstice break and it is about the absurd (from reading his perspective he was critical of existentialism so I don't know why he's consider an existentialist). The Absurd is humanity's attempt to find meaning or to make sense of an indifferent universe. Albert Camus starts the book off with discussion on Absurdity and Suicide. Suicide is when the person agrees with the Absurd, that is, existence is truly meaningless and thus not worth living. Camus analyzes the absurd and the normal responses which he concludes is a leap of faith and suicide, for the leap of faith which he concludes Kierkegaard, Jaspers, Husserl, and even Kafka all took the leap because they still tried to find meaning in an indifferent universe. Yet Camus offers a third option of living with or facing the absurd through revolt (i.e. we should not accept any so-called answer or solution in our struggle), freedom (i.e. as Sartre stated we a force to be free), and passion or diversity (i.e. we should pursue a life of abundant and various experiences). He demonstrates absurd living using four examples Don Juanism or the Seducer, the Actor, the Conqueror, and the Artist. Camus shows how the Greek myth of Sisyphus is the absurd hero who was condemned by the gods to push the rock to the top of the hill just to see it role back down to role it up again. I think this means the innate drive of life is twofold that is, everything revolves around survival and passing on your genes to keep the game going. In other words, life keeps on evolving, the universe keeps on expanding because it does not have a meaning or a point it is trying to get to, the universe and the life within it is its own point! I know some feel that in order for life not to be absurd there must be a purpose beyond life itself, yet if you ask what is the point or purpose of whatever is beyond life itself that is heaven, hell, reincarnation, etc, would it really be a point or a purpose? Why this life; if the point is a life somewhere else? I think living this life to get somewhere else is really Absurd. Think about it....