When I was sixteen or so and growing up during the sixties and seventies in Toronto, Canada, I thought I knew just how the world worked and more than that, I knew how the world ought to work. I was all for sex, drugs and rock and roll, peace and love. I was against the war in Vietnam. I was for non-violence and I wanted people in Africa and India to have enough to eat. I did not agree with authoritarianism, conformism, or theism.
Now that I am to be sixty-two in August, I am shocked to realize just how confused I am by the world and stunned to see it isn’t working how it should. I have decided that my philosophical outlook could be the cause of my confusion. But first, I have to identify what my philosophical outlook is.
Political, religious, and economic issues aside, I still have trouble explaining to myself what the personal philosophy of my life is all about. It’s difficult to categorize. If it’s true that the unexamined life is not worth living then I had best get busy to codify, if I can, or at least to identify the philosophy that I have been following since I was fifteen.
Of course, I don’t claim an understanding of philosophy or its many schools of thought. I am nothing more than a college drop out who barely made it through high school and who grew up in the suburbs of Toronto. While I do read a lot, I cannot say with confidence that I understand more than the gist of the subjects I read. Nevertheless, I plod on.
I came across a post on social media mentioning three somewhat related schools of philosophical thought, nihilsim, absurdism, and existentialism. I thought I knew what they were as I had been reading Albert Camus, the Algerian philosopher and playwright, specifically his novel, The Stranger.
Am I a nihilist? Well, I do reject religious principles as they are based on non-verifiable underpinnings that create more questions instead of answering the ones posed. However, I do hold to some moral principles. I believe morality precedes religion and that fear of punishment or hope for reward is not a basis for a sound morality. The morals I observe are the same ones most folk hold dear; no murdering, raping or plundering, no beating folks or torturing animals, no owning other human beings as property nor treating women as chattel. I am a law-abiding citizen and I do think some form of order is required for society to work. And yes, I do think society is necessary.
However, I do think life is meaningless. It matters not one jot whether I live or die, not in the big scheme of things anyway. It does, however, matter a great deal to me. And I hope it matters to those whom I love and to those whom profess to love me. I bring my own meaning to my life, which can change, and it has changed, from time to time, just as Viktor Frankl says in his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” So, no, I am not really a nihilist.
Am I an absurdist? Not specifically. I mean, yes I think life is absurd, the human condition is absurd, and our search for meaning in a meaningless universe is absurd. This is encapsulated by the questions of why is the universe the way it is, or what is the meaning of life. These are absurd and meaningless questions.
Soren Kierkegaard and Albert Camus independently decided there were three resolutions to the problem: suicide, which they rejected as simply being even more absurd, religion, which they thought to be a non-rational solution because it requires an acceptance of an ethereal and improvable concept. The third solution was acceptance of the absurd nature of the world, though Kierkegaard did not embrace this idea as much as Camus who thought that by rebelling against the absurdity of life while at the same time accepting its existence, one might realize some personal meaning from the process.
Now I must admit this does resonate with me. I search for my own meaning of life. I find meaning in writing; reading, playing music and exercising those creative flourishes such as they are to the best of my ability. I do so despite the fact that my activity is meaningless to the child starving in a war torn country, or to the mother who holds her dying child in her arms, or to the father who must bury his rage along with his sons killed in a drone attack by forces who said they are acting in his best interest. And for me to posit the things that I do as having meaning must certainly be absurd.
Existentialism is, “a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will,” now this really does sound much more in line with how I think.
Existentialism embraces the “Absurd,” that idea of a meaningless universe. We are free to realize our own meaning and inherent in that is the freedom to choose to be good or bad and by so choosing we are not considered to be inherently good or bad, for there is no such thing as good or bad and the universe certainly does not care about us, the universe is in fact callously indifferent to our wants and needs.
My problem with existentialism, if I have understood it correctly, is that I do not put much emphasis on free will. I think the concept of free will is overstated and it is my contention that chance and contingency play a larger role in our lives than we would like to think.
Existentialism is notoriously hard to define and while Soren Kierkegaard is considered to be its founder, it was Jean-Paul Sartre who first self-identified as an existentialist.
In 1945, he described existentialism as, “the attempt to draw all the consequences from a position of consistent atheism.” Sartre also stated, “what all existentialists have in common is the fundamental doctrine that existence precedes essence.”
Albert Camus, one time friend and contemporary of Sartre until they had a falling out, famously posited, "there is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” And it is said the possibility of suicide makes all humans existentialists.
I am lured to existentialism because of its ideas about meaninglessness and that the concepts of good and evil are replaced with the idea that things just happen and they could as easily happen to good people as to bad people, it makes no difference to the universe. The concept of acting authentically as oneself, to create oneself and to be true to who you really are, is intoxicating to me. This is a freeing state of mind to me and it imbues each moment with a gravitas that is not to be wasted.
If I am an existentialist then as an almost sixty-two year old I should not be so confused by the world because to be confused means that the universe was acting in a way that had less meaning to me which presupposes it had a meaning to begin with, which of course it did not.
Yes, if I am an existentialist then I should no longer feel as confused by the world for it was absurd to begin with, I am just older now.
Now that I am to be sixty-two in August, I am shocked to realize just how confused I am by the world and stunned to see it isn’t working how it should. I have decided that my philosophical outlook could be the cause of my confusion. But first, I have to identify what my philosophical outlook is.
Political, religious, and economic issues aside, I still have trouble explaining to myself what the personal philosophy of my life is all about. It’s difficult to categorize. If it’s true that the unexamined life is not worth living then I had best get busy to codify, if I can, or at least to identify the philosophy that I have been following since I was fifteen.
Of course, I don’t claim an understanding of philosophy or its many schools of thought. I am nothing more than a college drop out who barely made it through high school and who grew up in the suburbs of Toronto. While I do read a lot, I cannot say with confidence that I understand more than the gist of the subjects I read. Nevertheless, I plod on.
I came across a post on social media mentioning three somewhat related schools of philosophical thought, nihilsim, absurdism, and existentialism. I thought I knew what they were as I had been reading Albert Camus, the Algerian philosopher and playwright, specifically his novel, The Stranger.
Am I a nihilist? Well, I do reject religious principles as they are based on non-verifiable underpinnings that create more questions instead of answering the ones posed. However, I do hold to some moral principles. I believe morality precedes religion and that fear of punishment or hope for reward is not a basis for a sound morality. The morals I observe are the same ones most folk hold dear; no murdering, raping or plundering, no beating folks or torturing animals, no owning other human beings as property nor treating women as chattel. I am a law-abiding citizen and I do think some form of order is required for society to work. And yes, I do think society is necessary.
However, I do think life is meaningless. It matters not one jot whether I live or die, not in the big scheme of things anyway. It does, however, matter a great deal to me. And I hope it matters to those whom I love and to those whom profess to love me. I bring my own meaning to my life, which can change, and it has changed, from time to time, just as Viktor Frankl says in his book, “Man’s Search for Meaning.” So, no, I am not really a nihilist.
Am I an absurdist? Not specifically. I mean, yes I think life is absurd, the human condition is absurd, and our search for meaning in a meaningless universe is absurd. This is encapsulated by the questions of why is the universe the way it is, or what is the meaning of life. These are absurd and meaningless questions.
Soren Kierkegaard and Albert Camus independently decided there were three resolutions to the problem: suicide, which they rejected as simply being even more absurd, religion, which they thought to be a non-rational solution because it requires an acceptance of an ethereal and improvable concept. The third solution was acceptance of the absurd nature of the world, though Kierkegaard did not embrace this idea as much as Camus who thought that by rebelling against the absurdity of life while at the same time accepting its existence, one might realize some personal meaning from the process.
Now I must admit this does resonate with me. I search for my own meaning of life. I find meaning in writing; reading, playing music and exercising those creative flourishes such as they are to the best of my ability. I do so despite the fact that my activity is meaningless to the child starving in a war torn country, or to the mother who holds her dying child in her arms, or to the father who must bury his rage along with his sons killed in a drone attack by forces who said they are acting in his best interest. And for me to posit the things that I do as having meaning must certainly be absurd.
Existentialism is, “a philosophical theory or approach that emphasizes the existence of the individual person as a free and responsible agent determining their own development through acts of the will,” now this really does sound much more in line with how I think.
Existentialism embraces the “Absurd,” that idea of a meaningless universe. We are free to realize our own meaning and inherent in that is the freedom to choose to be good or bad and by so choosing we are not considered to be inherently good or bad, for there is no such thing as good or bad and the universe certainly does not care about us, the universe is in fact callously indifferent to our wants and needs.
My problem with existentialism, if I have understood it correctly, is that I do not put much emphasis on free will. I think the concept of free will is overstated and it is my contention that chance and contingency play a larger role in our lives than we would like to think.
Existentialism is notoriously hard to define and while Soren Kierkegaard is considered to be its founder, it was Jean-Paul Sartre who first self-identified as an existentialist.
In 1945, he described existentialism as, “the attempt to draw all the consequences from a position of consistent atheism.” Sartre also stated, “what all existentialists have in common is the fundamental doctrine that existence precedes essence.”
Albert Camus, one time friend and contemporary of Sartre until they had a falling out, famously posited, "there is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.” And it is said the possibility of suicide makes all humans existentialists.
I am lured to existentialism because of its ideas about meaninglessness and that the concepts of good and evil are replaced with the idea that things just happen and they could as easily happen to good people as to bad people, it makes no difference to the universe. The concept of acting authentically as oneself, to create oneself and to be true to who you really are, is intoxicating to me. This is a freeing state of mind to me and it imbues each moment with a gravitas that is not to be wasted.
If I am an existentialist then as an almost sixty-two year old I should not be so confused by the world because to be confused means that the universe was acting in a way that had less meaning to me which presupposes it had a meaning to begin with, which of course it did not.
Yes, if I am an existentialist then I should no longer feel as confused by the world for it was absurd to begin with, I am just older now.
Comments
Post a Comment