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ABSURDITY OF LIFE

I read the news of the attack that took place at Turkey’s largest airport on Tuesday, June 28, 2016. Scores of people were killed and hundreds were wounded.

I was at work complaining about still working at my age, complaining I wouldn’t be able to afford the vacation I wanted, moaning about having to cut back on going out to dinner and fearing whether or not I would be able to continue my lifestyle when I do retire in four years.

It’s absurd.

People’s lives were shattered on the day I was working and thinking about my daily life, my wife, my friends, my family, and what to do on the weekend.

It’s not that I didn’t care. I did care, I was outraged, I was saddened, and I closed the newspaper.

How do we live in a world where tragedy occurs all the time?

Worse, yet, much of the horror that happens does so in our name. The carnage is caused directly or indirectly by the very leaders, we elect.

And it’s not all man-made tragedy. There's the capriciousness of nature to contend with as well.

Boxing Day, 2004, I was at home with family eating leftovers when 250,000 people were swept into the Indian Ocean.


I suppose it was easier to deal with the news of that situation because it was not caused deliberately. However, the scope of the disaster was overwhelming. It was mind-boggling.

It’s absurd.


Life is absurd. At least the existentialists deem it so, completely meaningless, the only question is whether to kill yourself or not.

Yet, we do not run like lemmings of cliffs. We continue. We live.

I am have no religious belief and cannot turn to any god for answers. If god is an illusion then belief is of no use. If god is real then he must be a psychopath and believing in him would still be absurd. So, why then do I carry on?

If life is represented in the struggle of Sisyphus, who is condemned to roll a boulder up a hill only to have it roll back down where he must begin again for all eternity, then what is the point?

I have no idea.

I suppose I do not view life like that. Of course, I do not think anything I do will matter in the greater scheme of things, but what I do matters to me. It matters to those who love me.

Yes, life is a game of dice. You never know if you will win or not. Hell, most of the time you are unaware of the stakes. But isn’t that what makes life exciting?

And there are blue skies.

You may enjoy a warm day in the sun even though on the other side of the world, people are fighting for their survival in a flood. But never fear. You might end up in a tornado the following week.

The universe is callously indifferent to what you want. There is no meaning to life, other than what you bring on your own accord.

But isn’t it a grand ride? Don’t you want to do the best you can, be the best version of yourself, enjoy whatever happiness you can eke out of this existence?

Life is absurd. It is meaningless.

Albert Camus wrote that we should imagine Sisyphus as happy. That rather reminds me of the Japanese general in the movie, Bridge on the River Kwai, exhorting the captured British soldiers slaving away in the jungle building his railroad to “be happy in your work!”

So what, life is meaningless and absurd! To me, it is also enjoyable, fulfilling, challenging, frustrating, and the whole range of emotions I possess.

I see beauty as well as ugliness. There are warm sunny days and there are icy cold nights and there is everything in between. I know cruelty exists just as I know kindness also exists.

Love and hate swirl around like a yin/yang symbol and we hope love triumphs. Hope doth spring eternal and we all want to believe that.

Shit happens and we deal with it.

It’s the rich tapestry of experience, the joyful participation in your life for the time you have to live; that’s what makes it worthwhile.

Naïve and philosophically unsound though I may be, this is how I look at the world, with hope, angst, love, hate, compassion, indifference, chaos and contradiction, and with the irrational hope I can do better.

I know.

It’s absurd.




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