Happiness, Absurdism, & Love
An essay on happiness, absurdism, and love.
This is gonna be kind of a two three part essay. We’ve got part one that’s gonna be on happiness and our journey/where we wanna go next. Then part two which is about absurdism. Then part three which is about a solution to the absurd. It ended up being way bigger than intended and probably good enough to publish.
Part One: Happiness
So we’ve recently started abandoning our notions of choosing to be effective. It wasn’t working for us. Pursuing happiness takes care of us being you know, happy. It also makes us more effective at doing stuff in our life. That’s good. I want to know where we want to go next.
I’ll touch on this more later, but I was watching this video essay, and there was a point on how artists and creatives are encouraged to be ambitious. Ambition is like a staircase, the only point is the reach the top. The answer the video essay was providing to escape the trap of ambition, is to enjoy the journey. Enjoy and “be content with the step you’re currently on”, he said.
That got me thinking about the Myth of Sisyphus. Our man Sisyphus does a lot of crazy shit, gets punished by the gods, and has to roll a boulder up a hill only for it to fall back down for all of eternity. Crazy story yeah? Well Albert Camus certainly thought so, when he wrote “The Myth of Sisyphus” and published it in 1942. I won’t go too deep into it, as I only know the cliff notes, but I’ve been tempted to read it more as of late. The staircase and the boulder are one and the same.
This got me thinking about my own philosophy, how do I define the absurd, and how do we (or I) deal with it? But before we jump into that, I wanted to make a rough snapshot of what I think would make me happy right now.
The general summary is that the absurd is different for different people, and people will deal with it differently depending on different factors. For me it seems that holding two contradictory viewpoints and finding happiness on that line in the middle between the two, makes me the most happy. Not believing in any capital G god, but still praying. Realizing that the institution of school is fucked up, but still learning from it anyways. Knowing that my life doesn’t matter but learning and loving and living, both because of that and in spite of that.
You confused yet? Well there’s more in part two.
Part Two: Absurdism
I made a lot of voice notes in a group chat between 2 of my close friends and I. The summary was that, I define the absurd to be the contradiction of us living in a universe that is both irrational, chaotic, and almost unreal in it’s brief and sudden endings, while also recognizing that in some ways the universe must have order, it must be rational. This reflects onto us, we are creatures in search for meaning, that can find meaning in things, but also shouldn’t be able to? If that doesn’t make sense, I’ll try and elaborate.
You step outside on a warm spring afternoon, the sky is an almost perfect but random cacophony of clouds and colors. The birds are singing, the wind is blowing. You somehow feel both ultimately free, and peacefully grounded. Your dog, who you love very much, steps outside to accompany you. In this moment of pure bliss, he takes a shit on your porch, and then waltz’s back inside like nothing just happened.
That is the absurd in my eyes. It’s the contradiction of things in this world that are somehow both so full of meaning and order, but also not. Things are rational and make sense, until they don’t. We are beings of both chaos and order, rationality, and irrationality. We’re both a reflection of the world we live in, and something completely separate from it.
Another way I think of it, is that we are creatures able to genuinely find meaning in things, but also able to rationally deduce that there is no inherent meaning. There cannot be inherent meaning due to the nature of things, but there is, it’s right there! You see it in the birds, the trees, the smiles on peoples faces. There is meaning, but there also can’t be. That’s a contradiction both within, and outside of ourselves. I mean that to say that we can see this contradiction in the outside world, but also within our inner thoughts.
Part Three: Breakthrough
My head is starting to hurt, let’s pivot a little, shall we? We’re able to find meaning in things, but rationally shouldn’t be able to, but it does work. So then what are we supposed to do?
My answer is as I stated earlier, we need to do both. We have a problem that we can’t have our cake and eat it too, but why not bake two cakes? Can we hold both the opinion that true objective meaning is impossible in this world, and still be able to have meaning somehow? I think that we can.
This is gonna be tough to pull off, but let’s pretend for a second that we can do it. What then? What can we do if there is a way for us to ride the line between meaning and meaninglessness? What should we do? It’s a big question to answer, and I don’t think I’m qualified to tell you what you should or shouldn’t do in this situation. I can tell you what I’m going to do though. I’m going to live.
I think Camus says something about being so free that even in a cage your very existence is an act of rebellion, I think I agree. I’m going to live, and prioritize my happiness. I will follow my whimsey where it takes me. And when life has me down, and my avenues for action have been exhausted, Amor fati. I will love my fate, and be so joyous in the most monotonous situations, because if I can be so free that even dreadful chains can’t break me, then I can never be truly imprisoned.
“But what about morals,” I hear a nagging voice say. Those are important yes, we often need something to guide us, a light to hold dear to, a guiding hand. But what then, when there can be no objective meaning, no truth? I think Kendrick Lamar says it best on ‘Auntie Diaries’:
I said, “Mr. Preacher man, should we love thy neighbor? The laws of the land or the heart, what’s greater? I recognize the study she was taught since birth But that don’t justify the feelings that my cousin preserved” The building was thinking out loud, bad angel That’s when you looked at me and smiled, said, “Thank you” The day I chose humanity over religion The family got closer, it was all forgiven
Love, love seems to be the key. If you want a more specific definition of what kind of love, I mean the kind described by bell hooks in her book ‘All About Love: New Visions.’ Love that encourages the “nurturing [of] one’s own, or another’s spiritual growth.” Even though there is no meaning objectively, we can still find nuggets of meaning in our lives. I personally have found it through different kinds of love, such as platonic, romantic, and familial. This also ties into the philosophy of Waymond Wang from EEAAO.
“I don’t know. The only thing I do know… is that we have to be kind. Please, be kind - especially when we don’t know what’s going on.”
Even if morals and what we ought to do can be fuzzy, I think love and kindness can serve as a lighthouse in the foggy sea of nuanced moral theories. We should try and keep some good morals, but when all else fails, love and kindness are the beacons we need to guide us. That’s at least what I’ll be using to guide me.
Part Four: Summary
More specifically, and finally. What’s going to make me happy? I think in regards to our topic of meaning and contradictions, me realizing that things are complicated, that we and the world are both rational and irrational, but embracing that contradiction, is what makes me happy. And with a confusing absurd theory on what the meaning of life is, love and kindness are there to act as guiding stars in my journey of life.
Choosing to live and exist as much as one can, constantly revolting from the mundane assassination of my spirit, and keeping love & kindness as close friends. That is what will make me happy.
Final Notes, References, & Recommended Media
If this piece made you think more, or think differently about your life, then please consider sharing with someone who might benefit from reading this. I don’t like urging people to “like and subscribe” but I hope this can be of value to you and others you may know.
In the middle of writing this piece, I ended up going on a hike as a little date. It was fun, beautiful, and relieving with a beautiful waterfall at the end of our trail. Before driving home, I got hit in the eye with my boyfriends jacket zipper on accident. Just thought that was a funny example of the absurd in action.
If you enjoyed this piece, please consider indulging in any of the media I mentioned. I’ve provided some links to where you can learn more.
Thanks again for reading, have a good morning, good evening, or good night.
How to Escape the Neoliberal Lie | Kendrick Lamar & Whiplash(YouTube)
“The Myth of Sisyphus” by Albert Camus(Wikipedia)
“The Absurd” by Thomas Nagel(PDF)
Miguel’s DESTRUCTIVE Idea of “SPIDER-MAN”(YouTube)
Kendrick Lamar - Auntie Diaries(YouTube)
“All About Love: New Visions” by bell hooks(Wikipedia)
Everything Everywhere All at Once(IMDb)