Our Existential Predicament:
Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety & Death

by James Park


Outline for Chapter 3:

Existential Absurdity:
Is Life Worth Living?

I. ORDINARY DISHARMONY AND EXISTENTIAL ABSURDITY

II. HOW WE DISCOVER EXISTENTIAL ABSURDITY

III. CAMUS' ENCOUNTER WITH THE ABSURD

IV. HANDLING THE ABSURD—COPING

A. Denying the Absurd.
B. Reinterpreting Our Awareness of the Absurd.
C. Preoccupying Ourselves with Other Things.
D. Escaping into Personal Relationships.
E. Turning to 'Objectivity' and 'Science'.
F. Accepting Religious Beliefs.
V. REBELLING AGAINST THE ABSURD—AUTHENTIC EXISTENCE

VI. FREEDOM FROM THE ABSURD

VII. CRITERIA FOR VERIFICATION


Chapter 3

Existential Absurdity:

Is Life Worth Living?



     Even in the middle of an apparently meaningful—at least ordered—universe,
human life seems absurd, out of joint, useless.
The ant-hill may not seem absurd to the ants,
but from the human point of view
—from the perspective of the only creatures on the third planet from the sun
who are not satisfied merely to live out the life of their species,
the creatures who ask more questions than there are answers—
life is absurd, ridiculous, inconsequential.

I. ORDINARY DISHARMONY AND EXISTENTIAL ABSURDITY

     The ultimate absurdity of human existence is not obvious.
But sometimes when we just walk down the street,
we suddenly notice the deep absurdity of the events surrounding us.
Such a flash of awareness may move us to laughter,
even tho the feeling is more tragic than comic.
Being able to laugh at what we and other human creatures are so busy doing
—and taking so seriously—indicates that we have transcended the situation.
Evidently it takes a special perspective or sensitivity to see the absurdity
underlying the ‘obvious’ organization and purposefulness of human life.

     1. Describing this condition of existential absurdity
depends on metaphors drawn from our experience of ordinary absurdity
—any clash, out-of-placeness, or incongruity.
Finding a hat in the refrigerator or a banana in the bed makes us laugh
because these things are out of their ‘proper places’.
When familiar things are juxtaposed in unexpected ways,
absurdity is created, which often strikes us as funny.
Anything ‘out of tune’ creates a sense of disharmony.

     But the deeper sense of total absurdity
does not arise from a specific clash we can point out.
It is a free-floating, all-engulfing sense of disharmony,
not an intelligible problem of something out of place.
Human existence itself seems to be ‘out of place’.
When we ask for the ultimate meaning of the accidental universe,
the only answer is—silence.
We cannot imagine what modification would create fundamental harmony.
This absurdity is not the intellectual perception of clash or disharmony
but the existential collapse of our whole sense of order.
Seen from within the absurd, nothing has a proper place.
And no amount of rearranging of the furniture of human life
would result in a non-absurd pattern.

Chapter 3     EXISTENTIAL ABSURDITY:  IS LIFE WORTH LIVING?     by JAMES PARK       53


     2. The causes of ordinary absurdities are well-known and easily-described.
In the realms of logic, esthetics, household-order, or political harmony,
it is easy to point out elements that upset proper balance and ‘fit’.
Asking for the sex of the sun is logically absurd.
Interrupting Beethoven’s 9th Symphony for a commercial is esthetically absurd.
Finding sand in the brown sugar is an offense against household-order.
And equally incongruous would be a Ku Klux Klansman in the NAACP.
In each of these examples of obvious incompatibility,
we immediately know how to correct the clash or disharmony.
Ordinary contradictions have obvious causes and solutions.

     But our inward, existential absurdity is not as easy to understand.
It is disclosed from within rather than intellectually perceived.
Perhaps objectively—empirically—nothing is out of place,
but inwardly—subjectively—everything is at sixes and sevens.
When we are possessed by existential absurdity,
nothing seems right, ordered, harmonious, or proper.
This awareness of the absurd has no specific, intelligible cause;
it does not even have a definite channel by which it takes over our beings.
We just find ourselves thrown bewildered into the absurd.

     3. Ordinary incongruities are temporary, usually short-lived.
As soon as we discover the hat in the refrigerator or the banana in the bed,
we know what to do to restore proper order.
When we know where things belong, we can easily set them right again.

     But existential absurdity cannot be easily corrected.
This absurdity is a permanent dimension of human existence,
even tho we may seldom notice it.
But when we do recognize the existential absurdity of our lives,
we wish we could return to our previous naivetè,
when everything was harmonious, meaningful, and purposeful.

     4. The ordinary absurdities and incongruities of life are all self-contained.
Holding meaningless and useless jobs
does not necessarily make our interpersonal lives absurd.
Nor do the political absurdities of any culture necessarily affect its art.
Each of these inconsistencies is independent and isolatable from the others.
And each individual clash can be handled by itself.

     But existential absurdity is not limited to one dimension of life.
Rather, it possesses every nook and cranny of our existence.
If we initially blame our jobs for our existential absurdity,
we find no relief by turning to our families.
Because existential absurdity arises from within our selves,
wherever we go, everything is colored absurd.

54        OUR EXISTENTIAL PREDICAMENT: LONELINESS, DEPRESSION, ANXIETY, & DEATH


     5. Ordinary clashes and incongruities can usually be resolved,
as already noted, by putting things back into their proper places,
by reestablishing the familiar order and harmony of the system.
And even when confronted with an insoluble clash,
we can sometimes accept the paradox and attempt to live with it.
For instance, it may be absurd to hold a job to support a car to get to that job,
but this is an everyday absurdity most of us can tolerate.

     The ultimate, existential absurdity, however,
cannot be resolved, no matter what we try.
No social reform, economic adjustment, or marital counseling
will ever successfully overcome the ultimate absurdity of human existence.

     The following chart summarizes these 5 differences
between normal incongruities or disharmonies and existential absurdity:
 
THE HUMAN CONDITION
INCONGRUITY, DISHARMONY
OUR EXISTENTIAL PREDICAMENT
EXISTENTIAL ABSURDITY
1. Anything out of its proper place,
any clash or contradiction. 
1. Total disharmony, clash of our hopes
with the silence of the universe.
2. Intelligible incompatibilities 
arising from our sense of propriety. 
2. Inward, inexplicable clash,
disharmony; existentially disclosed.
3. Limited in duration 
—until the clash is corrected.
3. A permanent, continuous
inner state-of-being.
4. Limited to its own universe 
of discourse; isolatable.
4. Every aspect of life is absurd;
floods everywhere; not isolatable.
5. Often the clash can be resolved, 
sometimes accepted.
5. The absurd cannot be overcome;
we cannot achieve ultimate harmony.

II. HOW WE DISCOVER EXISTENTIAL ABSURDITY


    The rest of this chapter on existential absurdity
—15 pages in all—will be found in
Our Existential Predicament:
Loneliness, Depression, Anxiety, & Death.
See the publisher's website for details: www.existentialbooks.com.


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James Leonard Park—Free Library