Absurdity

I was with some friends one day when we collectively realized that everything if fundamentally absurd. We broke it down thus:

Micro or Instantaneous Absurdity:

• a single event, word, or act
• or a thing that is by its nature absurd, where the observation of this thing is the event; the duck-billed platypus for example
• a thing that is absurd in its context; a polar bear in the San Diego zoo in 98 degree weather, or the presidential turkey pardon

Delayed Absurdity:

• when the entire sentence must be heard for its inherent absurdity to become apparent; “this sentence is …. (wait for it) … false”
• a sequence of events or group of objects slowly revealed after which the absurdity is manifest in the total context
• often produces verbal satiation when being delivered

Eventual Absurdity:

• over extended time periods (hours, days, months) where a situation slowly develops and becomes progressively more absurd
• an election campaign, for example

Abstract and Intangible Absurdity:

• a thought about a thing or action that is either highly implausible or downright impossible; “I’m going to jump on that trampoline and land on the Moon”
• a hypothetical that has a flawed premise or a set of self-contradicting assumptions; if A=B and C=pumpkin, them D=butterfly; what would you do if a penguin descended into your arms via a parachute?
• a statement or interrogatory that is tautologically corrupt or makes an assumption that is unverified given the context; do you walk to school or bring your lunch? Have you stopped beating your wife yet?

Existential Absurdity:

• all objects and events possess an inherent absurdity owing to the notion of absolute meaning in a relative universe
• a variant interpretation of Cosmic Absurdity

Local Absurdity:

• the workings of a specific society and one’s place in it
• an event or thing arising out of an incredibly complex and highly improbable situation; life, for example
• war
• making observations of, say, the environment, directly or indirectly, over long time scales, and seeing the result of processes affecting the observed thing; melting polar caps, for example, or 2000 years of a redwood tree’s growth
• absurdity that can arise in human cultures at small geographic scales — tribal customs, small town traditions

Cosmic Absurdity:

• the fundamental feeling of the absurdness of one’s existence (like, dude, what is existence anyway?)
• comes from a well informed understanding of the nature of the physical Universe and how absurdly small we and the Earth are in relation to all of space-time
• why am I here, and why can I contemplate the contemplation of this feeling, never mind possessing it
• apply infinite recursion to the “contemplating the contemplation of the contemplation of the…”; careful here, Cosmic Absurdity can be quite close to insanity