Transcription
Hey, it's Ben here. I took a break from making videos for a while, but I'm recording one today because over the last few months, I've received a bunch of emails and comments from people really interested in more information regarding the philosophy of absurdism.
I guess this idea really speaks to people who are looking for a way to improve the overall quality of their life and overcome the meaninglessness we all sometimes feel. A lot of you are asking for more specifics on absurdism, including actual ways to implement this philosophy into your life to feel better.
So, in this video, I want to first do a quick recap of what absurdism is and clarify some points that maybe other videos you've watched on other channels haven't covered. Then, I'll go over a few ways to implement this philosophy into your life and live at least partially like what Camus calls the Absurd Man.
These are a few things that I found have increased my overall life satisfaction without making any drastic changes. But first, let's do a quick recap of what this philosophy is all about and how it differs from some other existential ideas.
Now, keep in mind this is just one interpretation of it; it's best if you read the book and understand it for yourself. Absurdism is a type of existential philosophy developed in the 20th century by French philosopher Albert Camus. It deals with the problem of human existence and the loss of objective meaning in it, centering on the individual's lived experience. He outlined the core of his absurdist philosophy in the book "The Myth of Sisyphus."
According to absurdism, it's only natural for humans to seek out meaning in life. However, a conflict occurs when we try to do so and find that the universe is really cold, chaotic, and devoid of any meaning. This contradiction between our mind's search for meaning and the reality of nature is what Camus calls the Absurd.
Camus doesn't outright say that God doesn't exist in "The Myth of Sisyphus." It's just that it appears all there is to the universe at this time is just nature and the laws of nature, which we are a part of. If there is a God or a main objective reason for the universe existing in the first place, we have no idea what it is at this time.
Unfortunately, because of this, we have no choice but to confront the Absurd and solve this dilemma. He thinks there are three ways to go about this, and everyone falls into one of these three categories:
1. Philosophical suicide
2. Actual suicide
3. Embrace the Absurd
So first, there's philosophical suicide, which means we ignore reality and pretend there is objective meaning to our lives and the universe. Camus seems to think that most people in life fall into this category because, again, it's only natural for humans to seek out meaning.
I think it's important to stop and more clearly articulate what Camus means by meaning. In "The Myth of Sisyphus," he writes that there is no meaning in life whatsoever, but I think he doesn't exactly mean this. He wrote that to mainly differentiate his philosophy from other existential thinkers, including Sartre, who believed meaning was something ontological in nature, like a real tangible thing out there, like this chair I'm sitting in.
For Camus, meaning is a feeling of significance that is ephemeral in nature or arises and passes in and out of conscious awareness, just like other feelings and thoughts in our mind. So while there may not be any concrete objective meaning to our lives that we can point to—like saying, "I was put on the planet to do this"—you may have a sense or a passing feeling of something being significant, like working on a piece of artwork or experiencing the birth of a child, for example.
Now, some examples of this false idea of meaning we may assign to our lives to escape the Absurd include taking a leap of faith or believing that a God exists despite no empirical or logical evidence. We might live our lives for what we think that God wants, not what we want.
Another example is living with the hope that one day there will be lasting meaning or significance in our lives, even if it isn't religious in nature. Society often convinces us that meaning and significance lie in a certain destination. This is very big in Western culture. For example, you may think that life is meaningless now, but once you become a doctor, or you have a million dollars, or you get a wife, then suddenly your life will have meaning, and you'll finally be somebody.
Or, you might fall prey to narcissistic thinking or idolizing a narcissistic individual who takes the place in one's mind of a religious God. This could be someone who thinks they were put on the earth for a special purpose that we all need, and they will continue to live on after death, somehow influencing society for generations to come.
Another choice we have when confronting the Absurd is actual suicide. At first, this seems like a rational idea. A man's mind will always struggle to find meaning; that's just how we're wired, and the universe will almost certainly never have any. "The Myth of Sisyphus" is his exploration to see if there's a better answer than suicide to the question of dealing with the Absurd. Life is sort of this mysterious gift in a way, so is there anything better we can do with our time than just go and die?
After a few cigarettes and deep thought, he decided that there is, and the answer is number three: embrace the Absurd. It turns out suicide, like hope, is just another false way out of the conflict of the Absurd that tries to dismiss it when it can't be dismissed. It's far better to actually embrace the Absurd.
Unlike all other existential and proto-existential philosophers like Nietzsche, Sartre, and Heidegger, Camus isn't interested in overcoming or defeating the Absurd, but living with it for a better life. In fact, he advocates living life to the fullest possible.
The Absurd is this conflict created between human reason and the unreasonable silence of the universe. To live with the Absurd, we—or what he calls the Absurd Man—must maintain conscious awareness of this conflict without trying to overcome it. When we do that, three consequences of trying to live with the Absurd happen: revolt, freedom, and passion.
Freedom happens because, for the first time, we're truly free to explore or do whatever we want. We don't have to live life for a God or for anyone else or what society expects from us. We get to construct our own values, as there's no moral realism.
Revolt happens in the sense that we're constantly aware of this desire for some grand meaning to the universe and our lives, knowing it will never happen, but living each day to the fullest anyway. It's basically saying, "Yeah, suffering is inevitable, and we're just sort of matter walking upright that became conscious. I could sit here being depressed and lonely, but you know what? I'm going to go enjoy some coffee. I'm going to go play a game I want to do."
And there's passion because if we're no longer living for some destination in the future, we should live for the present. We should experience everything we do with full vitality and energy because when we look into the future or the past for answers, that's when the suffering happens. Plus, we get to choose the activities and pursuits that give us happiness and meaning since we get to do them now, even if these feelings do fade shortly after the activity is done.
At the end of "The Myth of Sisyphus," Camus discusses Sisyphus and how he's the perfect absurdist hero. Sisyphus was a man who hated death and put death itself in chains so no mortal may die again. The gods were not too happy with this. Death was eventually liberated, and when it came time for Sisyphus to die, the god condemned him to a cruel eternal punishment.
Sisyphus was to roll a boulder up a mountain, only for it to fall back down for him to roll up again, over and over—a meaningless but unavoidable task. Camus says our lives are a lot like the life of Sisyphus. We all fear and hate death, and we spend a good portion of our lives working meaningless jobs in offices and factories just to survive. We're all rolling meaningless boulders up hills.
As life will have many unavoidable hardships, the key to accepting our struggle is to live in the present and even enjoy doing it. Sisyphus doesn't look into the past when he was freed, nor does he hope for some future where he's freed again. He lives for the climb and makes the most out of the present moment, not the destination or a purpose.
The key to embracing the Absurd, then, and getting the most out of life is to imagine that Sisyphus is happy and live fully in the present. Because like it or not, we're each Sisyphus, and it's time to stop pretending that we're not.
Okay, so that's the philosophy in a nutshell. Of course, there's much more nuance to this, but what can we take away from it to start living better lives starting right now?
I want to go over three steps that you could think about trying and see if they help. You don't have to radically alter your life or quit your job or fully embrace becoming an Absurd Man. The point of trying some ideas within absurdism is to improve the subjective well-being of your life—subjective well-being meaning just how well you think your life is going on average.
I think it's best to track this to see if these ideas actually work for you. One easy way is just to write down, on a scale of one to ten, how well you think your day went, and then find the average of these for the month. After trying ideas from absurdism for a few months, let's see if your average score went up or down. If it went up, maybe getting more into the philosophy is worth it.
It's sort of hard to look back and estimate how well you think your life is going; it's just a guess, as change usually is a gradual process we don't notice.
Okay, so step one: it's important to be aware of which one of these states you spend most of your time in:
1. Philosophical suicide
2. Actual suicide
3. Embracing the Absurd
Everyone's probably laughing at state number two because if you were in that state, you wouldn't be watching this video. But I actually disagree with this. I think a lot of people watching the video are in state two, but it's sort of a state of slow death.
Some people think being an absurdist means these types of people just play video games, relax on the couch all day, or drink all day. But that's exactly the opposite of what Camus is writing. There's a big difference between doing something and being all in and passionate about it, and doing something because it's mind-numbing—like alcoholism, pornography, or spending all day on social media. None of these tasks are fulfilling, and they don't involve being in the present. They often bring more misery after you do them than enjoyment.
There's a huge difference between someone who's passionate about wine and travels the world to seek out new tastes, and the alcoholic who drinks to numb out existence and doesn't even necessarily taste or savor any of the flavors.
All of us are in state one as well, even if you aren't religious. At some point in our lives, we are wired to be searching for meaning in life. The point is how much time are you spending in one, and is it all your time? Are you living life in hope that one day you will reach some sort of goal in life, and then have meaning, and you will be someone of significance?
According to Camus, being a doctor or a millionaire businessman is not more important or better than being, say, a construction worker who enjoys the outdoors in his job. If there's no meaning or purpose to what we do, then there is no reason for doing one thing over another just because society is telling you to do that.
What we're after again is living in the present and enjoying feelings of happiness and meaning, however fleeting they are, and being preoccupied with some sort of false sense of importance or false story of meaning that may lie one day in our future.
So, try to develop a sense of awareness of which one of these three states you're in most of the time and why. If you're not in state three, why not? What's stopping you from fully living in the present and embracing the moment?
Now, the next step is to write down things that you enjoy and that bring you meaning and happiness just because you like doing them. Again, we're rolling boulders up hills all day. Everything we do involves expending some sort of energy and effort, but there are some things for each of us that are less strenuous, and we may actually enjoy putting effort into.
There's not necessarily some big end goal in mind with them either. So, write down some things and think about how you can do more of that activity per week. Some ideas could be getting coffee and enjoying it, going for a walk, volunteering to help animals, selling a product, going jogging, lifting weights, or cooking something you like—something where you're fully invested in the present moment, not numbing it out with hours of video games or drugs.
Now, can you do just one more of these activities per week? If you have no time, where's all your time going? There's probably far more time in your life than you think you have. Again, this can be something that only takes a few minutes of your day, like enjoying coffee.
Is your time going toward things like trying to achieve goals that other people want you to achieve, getting a certain number of followers on social media, or looking a certain way? Are you on social media too much in general? I'm suggesting this because that's what the data says.
Okay, finally, step three: how can you enjoy these things more or really just live in the present moment more? One thing to try is savoring these activities more and not rushing through them or being distracted as you do them.
A big part of being an Absurd Man is to live in the present with vigor and vitality. So instead of rushing through cooking a meal, can you take a little bit more time to enjoy the process and enjoy the food and the flavors you cooked? Instead of rushing through a bike ride, can you go a little bit slower and enjoy it?
Chances are you'll finish the activity in about the same amount of time anyway. It may take a few more minutes, but you'll be getting much more meaning and happiness from it.
Now, if you think you truly have no time to do any activity that brings you pleasure and you're working 100 hours a week with children, is there a way to feel more satisfaction and savor the task you're doing?
Being a waitress isn't a meaningless job because that would mean objective meaning exists in a meaningless universe. So see if you can enjoy serving people or getting a little bit better each day at your job, remembering the items people request more and making some sort of game out of it.
Again, the point of absurdism is to match that Sisyphus is happy rolling the boulder up the hill with this meaningless task, without looking into the past or future for hope. We're all Sisyphus, so we can live in the present and enjoy life, or you can be like the other philosophers and experts you see and try to overcome what is impossible to overcome and give overarching meaning to a universe that the best evidence suggests is just nature and the laws of nature.
Okay, so that's something to try and see if it improves your life. Obviously, this is just a tiny look into absurdism and ways to embrace the philosophy for a better life. I mean, this video could go on for hours.
If you want more ideas or tactics on how to use absurdism, let me know below. I'm thinking about putting together a more in-depth training for those who ask, which I'll link to in the description and the comment section.
So, if you're feeling depressed, unfulfilled with life, or struggling with the idea of, you know, what's the meaning of all this, then maybe this can help. Again, that will be linked to in the description.
If this video helped you at all, please leave a comment or like it because YouTube suggests videos that get a lot of likes and interaction. That's all they seem to recommend anymore, despite the content or quality in them, and this could help other people looking for information on this topic.
Thanks for watching this video, and let me know other future videos you want to see. I'll talk to you again soon.