Tag: Albert Camus

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Absurdism……….What Do You Think ?

Proponent of Absurdism, Albert Camus

What Is Absurdism?

Have you ever heard of the term absurdism. No it has nothing to do with an instructional school for clowns. And speaking of clowns, no, neither does it have anything to do with our politicians. Absurdism is a term coined to reflect the writings of the twentieth century French author and philosopher Albert Camus, shown in the image above. It is the belief of absurdism that human beings exist in a purposeless, meaningless universe. Thus, according to the absurdism philosophy, there is something intrinsically “absurd” about the ongoing strivings of a human being to find meaning in their life. The absurdist remedies this tension between universal meaninglessness and the human desire for meaning by revolting against this meaninglessness through “constructed passion” in their daily chosen activity. One could generally say that absurdism is in the middle ground between existentialism and nihilism.

The Fork In The Road

According to absurdism, humans, in some manner or form, attempt to find a meaning or purpose to their lives in some way. Usually this search follows two basic paths…..the fork in the road. The first path is the conclusion is there is no Supreme Being from whence we came — a-theism. The universe has no deeper meaning other than…..it just exists. That is the whole ball of wax so to speak. Each of us must take what he or she is presented with in life and then construct their own meaning, even if that meaning is ultimately pointless. The second path that you can take is that your life has a true purpose established under the auspices a higher power – theism. This requires that you step off the road of logic and take the proverbial “leap of faith”. Camus called this leap of faith “philosophical suicide.”

You Make The Choice Of Which Road You Take

At some point along the road of life, every single person in the world that has the ability to make a choice at that fork in the road, will in fact make a choice. This choice is always made, either consciously or unconsciously, but make no mistake, it is made.

First Choice

Perhaps your life experience has led you to conclude that with all the pain and suffering and violence and avarice and greed and indifference and ignorance in the world, that there is no underlying inherent meaning to any of it. The whole thing, the entire universe is a rudderless ship chaotically bobbing along. When one or more of those things that cause suffering keeps slapping you or a loved one in the face, it is only natural for a human being to wonder……….why? And if nothing has any intrinsic meaning, all that you can do in order to make it through another day is to focus with passion on whatever life activity you are doing because you do in fact exist, you do have life and suicide as an escape or revolt from the pointlessness is simply not an option. The choice of absurdism can be described as human freedom through a “self constructed meaningfulness”.

Second Choice

The other choice that you can make as a soverign being is to go ahead and take that “leap of faith” that there is indeed a Divine Power and that your life has a definite purpose in line with a master plan of this Ultimate Intelligence. Every ripple your life creates is part of “the long game”. Every single event, every single person, every single happening, every single breath, has meaning, regardless of whether you are able to perceive it or not while you live on the earth. If you choose this belief, then when the body finally shuts down, your life continues on in the realm of spirit and your perception becomes clarified.

So what do you think? Is this life truly absurd? Or Is there underlying meaning to it all?

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Time — The Ultimate Trickster

Time – The Ultimate Trickster

On this April Fool’s Day, it is genuinely appropriate to discuss the ultimate trickster of them all — Time. Just what the heck is this earthly construct called “time”. Time – measured by today’s atomic clocks at over nine billion cesium energy jumps per second. There is more to this “tick-tock, tick-tock” trickster however than meets the senses. Have you felt that experience of time “flying by” when you involved in an activity that you enjoy doing and are good at. The greater the enjoyment, the faster time speeds up. Conversely, when you are doing something that you have zero interest in or find distasteful or boring, time then slows down to a snail’s pace. You look at the clock and it seems like invisible gremlins are holding back the hands of the clock. Yes, time is indeed the ultimate trickster.

The Eternal Now

According to Einstein’s Theory of Special Relativity, time slows down or speeds up depending how fast something is moving. The ultimate conclusion of this is that time itself would stop if you could hypothetically move at the speed of light. On earth, time remains a constant, neither speeding up nor slowing down but our perception of it varies widely. It has been postulated that when your spirit or soul leaves your body and proceeds to wherever it belongs, time, as such, ceases to exist. Everything happens in the “now moment.” Time does not travel forward from a point in the past to a point in the future. The present merely changes. Everything happens in the now. In the 1300’s, the theologian, philosopher and mystic Meister Eckhart wrote, ” There exists only the present instant…a Now which always and without end is itself new. There is no yesterday nor any tomorrow, but only Now, as it was a thousand years ago and as it will be a thousand years hence.”

Tick-Tock, Tick-Tock

When your soul moves on from earth, there will be no calendars, no clocks, no time. No placing an X over a day on the calendar or tearing off a page from a calendar for a month that is over. Here on earth however that would not work. There must be the “tick-tock, tick-tock” of time in order to allow you to measure your movements, your actions, your life. You can do your very best to live fully in the current moment but you are always aware of time past and time ahead. Even while writing this post, time was playing games with me. I found myself looking down at my watch and thinking to myself “What – 7:30 already! That’s ridiculous. It was 6:00 just a few minutes ago!” Another thing about time that I have discovered is that the older you get, the faster time zips by. The years crawl by when you are young, but then, each successive decade of life, time goes by faster and faster. When you hit your sixties, time appears to perversely speed up exponentially, seemingly to get you to your ultimate demise all that much quicker. So what are you to do with this thing called “time”.

Improve Your Relationship With Time

One of the wisest men in the history of the world, King Solomon, may hint at the answer. From the Book of Ecclesiastes, Chapter 3, Verses 12 and 13 (ESV): “I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live, that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in his toil.” The philosopher and a-theist Albert Camus ironically comes to somewhat the same conclusion in “The Myth of Sisyphus” when he states that Sisyphus can only be free when he comes into harmony with his circumstances. Whether you are involved in a major life undertaking or cleaning your ceramic toilet with a scrub brush, focus on what you are doing in the “right now”. Do it the very best you know how to do it. It doesn’t totally take away the mischievous trickery of time, but it does help to “take the edge off”. Plus, in the world of manifesting, learning how to focus on feeling as if your desire is real, right now, is definitely “where it’s at”.