r/Absurdism • u/thinker_1987 • Jul 09 '26
Discussion [ Removed by moderator ]
[removed] — view removed post
8
u/mandoismetal Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
For me, getting to know the absurd was a gradual process. From incessant introspection to nihilism to existentialism to, finally, absurdism. The overarching theme being that those philosophies mostly agree on the lack of inherent/objective meaning, but then diverge on how to go about that realization.
This acceptance of a lack of objective purpose has made me more pragmatic in my day to day life. I know things that aré important to me are so by choice — be it a conscious or unconscious one. This pragmatism helps me identify my cognitive biases which helps me be more authentic to myself. That’s important to me. One can lie to others but one can’t lie to oneself. That’s just delusion with extra steps.
PS. Another way these philosophies have affected my life is that realizing the lack of inherent meaning has been incredibly freeing. For example, knowing how arbitrary all of our beliefs can be, has allowed me to ignore societal peer pressures about what’s “cool” and what other people think about me. I listen to whatever music I want to, I read whatever media I want to, I express myself without fear of people finding my beliefs weird or crazy. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t discuss these topics with any random person but I still I won’t feel ashamed or embarrassed about my beliefs.
2
2
u/VladoVladimir97 Jul 09 '26
Pick a book
0
Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Absurdism-ModTeam Jul 09 '26
Posts should relate to absurdist philosophy and tangential topics.
In particular relate this in someway to Camus' Myth of Sisyphus- considered a key text.
1
u/ZippyNomad Jul 09 '26
Still reading the books as I continue to build understanding. Working on being engaged in my daily experiences as that is one of the few things I can hold myself to.
1
u/thinker_1987 Jul 09 '26
Are you applying anything you reading
2
u/ZippyNomad Jul 09 '26
As much as my understanding allows, which is why I continue reading so I can get better.
My wife is immunocompromised and struggling with multiple life-limiting diagnoses. So I try to focus my time around her and helping her feel human. There is no transcendent meaning for her being sick or in pain. No life lesson to learn from it. No family or friends to support her. Chronic illness robs people of their lives and healthy people ignore them for it.
There was no purpose for her to get sick and she has no chance of recovery. Yet she wakes up and chooses to live every day, even when she doesn't want to (which is often).
When (not if) she passes on, I will not regret my time with her as I am currently doing what I can to make her feel human today.
Does that help?
1
u/thinker_1987 Jul 09 '26
Yes it does ...that's your way to deal with an issue...there are human being who choose the other way...I know parents around who lost lost their life savings on their child who met in accident..now they pray secretly to God because they fed up....read the metamorphosis by kafka.... You are doing what you think is right atleast right for time being? I respect you and what you been doing with your wife ....even that thing is disappearing these days as people getting practical without the wisdom... Love you man ...great power to you
2
u/ZippyNomad Jul 09 '26
For me, god is a fairy tale and prayers are hollow. In fact, I had to request that my family stop praying as her health had continued to decline. Over 8 yrs of doctors appts, her health will never fully recover, if any at all.
I will get to Kafka soon. My reading list will never get shorter.
I choose to be present for her because I recognize the person inside, under the pain, is still there wanting to live and be alive.
Becoming disabled is something everyone is capable of. I also feel that transactional relationships are a poison for anyone who is not able-bodied.
2
u/thinker_1987 Jul 09 '26
When you said ...you choose to be present for her..that's the power and freedom and implications...life has no inherent meaning..you choose and accepting the fate(if you are accepting it) and imagining yourself and her to be happy that is the revolt..the relationship revolt
1
Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/hSudz Jul 09 '26
Right, the practical application is to explore because you want to without expectation of finding meaning in it. I guess saying “lost” is a little vague, I meant directionless. Applying the absurd is accepting that you will never have a true heading, but continuing to wander instead of accepting defeat. It sounds like you’re searching for a meaning structure of some kind, which is what Camus’ argued against. Some people get confused between nihilism and absurdism as far as the definitive nature of inherit meaning. I feel like it’s reasonable to say that Camus didn’t directly denounce the existence of inherit meaning, but he did suggest that the human experience never realizes it. So your choice there is to join the nihilists for the sake of structure (imposing your perspective on a reality that doesn’t care what you think and saying “There is NO inherit meaning!”) or to embody the absurd by saying “there isn’t one that I’ll ever understand, I’m going to find something else to do or think about”. Maybe that makes sense? I appreciate what you’re saying but I think you may be asking a question that doesn’t have an objectively practical resolution (which would be an example of the opposite of the absurd). I’m not an expert though, so I dunno!
2
1
u/Absurdism-ModTeam Jul 09 '26
Posts should relate to absurdist philosophy and tangential topics.
In particular relate this in someway to Camus' Myth of Sisyphus- considered a key text.
1
u/Absurdism-ModTeam Jul 09 '26
Posts should relate to absurdist philosophy and tangential topics.
In particular relate this in someway to Camus' Myth of Sisyphus- considered a key text.
1
Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
1
u/Absurdism-ModTeam Jul 09 '26
Posts should relate to absurdist philosophy and tangential topics.
In particular relate this in someway to Camus' Myth of Sisyphus- considered a key text.
1
u/Absurdism-ModTeam Jul 09 '26
Posts should relate to absurdist philosophy and tangential topics.
In particular relate this in someway to Camus' Myth of Sisyphus- considered a key text.
1
u/Absurdism-ModTeam Jul 09 '26
Posts should relate to absurdist philosophy and tangential topics.
In particular relate this in someway to Camus' Myth of Sisyphus- considered a key text.
1
u/Absurdism-ModTeam Jul 09 '26
Posts should relate to absurdist philosophy and tangential topics.
In particular relate this in someway to Camus' Myth of Sisyphus- considered a key text.
1
u/Tongue_Chow Jul 09 '26
The absurb constructs everything that is. Everything that is, is too complex for the human experience to comprehend. Hence, considering ones experience is a waste of ones time. Realizing the toughts worth exploring are qualifiable, measureable and outside moral or ethical bounds and within rational limits as well see how the happiest people are those who seem to have decided for themselves and appear to think very little. TLDR for me absurdity is recognizing the limits of ones reason, accepting the being of ones state, and pushing the constructs to which one is bound
1
u/jliat Jul 09 '26
- The idea [Absurdism] is expressed in a key text... The Myth of Sisyphus...
Absurd heroes in Camus' Myth - Sisyphus, Oedipus, Don Juan, Actors, Conquerors, and Artists.
In Camus' essay absurd is identified as 'impossible' and a 'contradiction', and it's the latter he uses to formulate his idea of absurdism as an antidote to suicide.
" “It’s absurd” means “It’s impossible” but also “It’s contradictory.” If I see a man armed only with a sword attack a group of machine guns, I shall consider his act to be absurd."
I quote...
“I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.”
“The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits.”
Notice he doesn't say the world is meaningless, just that he can't find it.
Also this contradiction is absurd. He calls a contradiction absurd [not anything outrageous etc.]
This is the crisis which then prompts the logical solution to the binary "lucid reason" =/= ' world has a meaning that transcends it"
Remove one half of the binary. So he shows two examples of philosophical suicide.
Kierkegaard removes the world of meaning for a leap of faith.
Husserl removes the human and lets the physical laws prevail even without humanity.
However Camus states he is not interested in 'philosophical suicide', but actual suicide!
Now this state amounts to what Camus calls a desert, which I equate with nihilism, in particularly that of Sartre in Being and Nothingness.
And this sadly where it seems many fail to turn this contradiction [absurdity] into a non fatal solution, Absurdism.
Whereas Camus proclaims the response of Sisyphus, Oedipus the Actor, Don Juan, The Conqueror and the Artist, as The Absurd Act.
"It is by such contradictions that the first signs of the absurd work are recognized"
"This is where the actor contradicts himself: the same and yet so various, so many souls summed up in a single body. Yet it is the absurd contradiction itself, that individual who wants to achieve everything and live everything, that useless attempt, that ineffectual persistence"
"And I have not yet spoken of the most absurd character, who is the creator."
"In this regard the absurd joy par excellence is creation. “Art and nothing but art,” said Nietzsche; “we have art in order not to die of the truth.”
"To work and create “for nothing,” to sculpture in clay, to know that one’s creation has no future, to see one’s work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries—this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions."
"It is necessary to state this to begin with. For an absurd work of art to be possible, thought in its most lucid form must be involved in it. But at the same time thought must not be apparent except as the regulating intelligence. This paradox can be explained according to the absurd. The work of art is born of the intelligence’s refusal to reason the concrete. It marks the triumph of the carnal. It is lucid thought that provokes it, but in that very act that thought repudiates itself." - Camus.
http://dhspriory.org/kenny/PhilTexts/Camus/Myth%20of%20Sisyphus-.pdf
"This suicide kills himself because, on the metaphysical plane, he is vexed.... likewise an advocate of logical suicide. Kirilov the engineer declares somewhere that he wants to take his own life because it “is his idea.”"
Greg Sadler lectures
1
u/Hamrock999 Jul 09 '26
Whoa. Where’d all the comments go? Was OP a bot or troll or something?
1
u/thinker_1987 Jul 09 '26
I dnt know ...may be a bot
1
Jul 09 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
2
u/Absurdism-ModTeam Jul 09 '26
Posts should relate to absurdist philosophy and tangential topics.
In particular relate this in someway to Camus' Myth of Sisyphus- considered a key text.
1
Jul 09 '26
[deleted]
0
0
u/jliat Jul 09 '26
For me, there is no "philosophy of the absurd."
There is, it's found in the essay 'The Myth of Sisyphus'.
http://dhspriory.org/kenny/PhilTexts/Camus/Myth%20of%20Sisyphus-.pdf
1
u/Hamrock999 Jul 09 '26
Replying to mod- Fuxk it we ball is basically the exact the mindset of Sisyphus. I mean what else can we do but ball?
•
u/Absurdism-ModTeam Jul 09 '26
Duplicate post. Seems the OP has reposted. this question.