Thoughts on The Absurd

I watched an act of “To be or Not to Be” by Andrew Scott done to portray it with fluid emotions. A recent rereading of The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus had me thinking about how absurdist philosophy translated to today (with the first texts of it usually describing Kafkaesque worlds).

I’ve come to a crisis that I believe many in developed countries are having (and one we’ve been having for eternity once we are comfortable). What is the purpose of our comfort and moving forward in life in an industrial society? The term “wage slave” is thrown around so commonly that it’s becoming somewhat of a truth. We are delving deeper into convenience and media distraction in spite of environmental impact or so-what. You’ve probably heard a lot of that talk already and I’m in no place to preach, after all living in a developed country in any sense contributes to the problem. Many stop here and I don’t blame them, often falling into deep nihilistic pits of despair.

So then it’s asked “why am I working in an office 9–5 marking time and waiting for death?” Maybe it really is just an absurdity. We have entered the Kafkaesque, but we don’t have to take it seriously.

We are constantly seeking meaning in such a cold and increasingly digital society. But we created the whole idea of “meaning.” There was no universal absolute that demanded meaning to apply. Perhaps we are really just a bizarre way that energy is being circulated in the universe.

Back to Hamlet we cover an existential point of crisis. We cannot look forward to the future, yet we cannot guarantee what happens after death. Camus would argue that regardless of all of this, we fight the Absurd. An everlasting battle between losing and gaining meaning because it won’t stay consistent. Fighting entropy because our spirit ironically demands order, regardless of the fact we were born from the entropy. We create an ideal of the future to love rather than surrender to the passage of time.

It’s a beautiful idea, but I am still afraid to die.