Instead of reducing us to frustration and anger, the absurdity of life can drive us deeper within.
As Albert Camus and other existentialists asserted, we are condemned to be free. They implored us not to accept the unreasonableness of existence. They wanted us to be anti-absurdity heroes while rebelling against nihilism and despair.
What if it isn’t condemnation that we are dealing with? What if, instead of feeling abandoned, we accept that as a condition of existence? Instead of going out, may we turn within?
Maybe the world would be a little less sad and dense if it could no longer detain us after we had accepted the world as it was—with no meaning or purpose.
How can we say we are condemned to be free? Who or what condemned us? Is such belief a hostile overreaction to past religious or doctrinal beliefs?
The meaninglessness we see all around us is the true face of reality. It is the only thing we have in this lifetime.
What it is or what it is for is not for us to know. That is the nature of our existence.
Whatever our losses, they ought to be accepted, even welcomed, perhaps in a drunken way, but not mourned.
To say that we are condemned implies that someone or something is doing this to us.
Albert Camus was at war with reality.
But no one is doing anything to us.
It is us. We are all in this together.
Just as the world is devoid of meaning, every fiber of our being is meaningless. Yet we are still living, maybe even thriving.
In a real way, we are the very absurdity we are repulsed by. We can do nothing about that but stay still and participate or watch it all go on without you.
There may come a time for you and me when we appreciate that the absurdity and stillness are twins.
So, what is this deep stillness? If you believe there is such a thing, you must not try to approach it through reason. Anything is better than reason here. Even music can help. Or feelings. Or a simple mantra. But not reasoning.
Reasoning and understanding are useless here. They are what keep us barricaded.
To me, deep stillness is not a place but a feeling—it is peace, freedom, and maybe even a fleeting sense of freedom after a period of frustration or futility. It is not unlike homecoming. Whatever troubles us moments ago disappears as though by magic.
Stillness does not have any discernible features. Our mind drifts, constantly following the movement of the world around us. It takes our eyes off the stillness—our native terrain of sound or lack of sound, texture or lack of texture, sound or lack of sound.
In the end, of course, absurdity isn’t absurd. It is not an aberration. It is natural, like everything else is. We are an intimate part of the absurdity. We complain about boring and predictable movies; are our lives any different?
I know that this blog can be chaotic. I am not a good organizer. The readers will have to pull stuff out by themselves. It’s like this is a pond of very murky water. Reaching in, one never knows what one may pull out.
If things are truly absurd, having no words is a natural disposition. Yet, I am babbling away here like there is no tomorrow.
It gets even more absurd if there is someone you care for or love in the midst of the chaos.
How do we get past this? Must we begin to spin like a Sufi mystic? Keep spinning to grind those useless trains of thought to dust?
I find it harder and harder to stay angry at anyone. Everyone is exactly like me: adrift in the void.
We touch our son or daughter’s hair in a gesture of affection. Love that has been touched by emptiness seems deeper. It caused us to feel keenly about how brief our time together was. The dream and the end of the dream both sadden and uplift us.
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