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Cognitive_Shift
CS actual




Registered: 12/11/07
Posts: 29,591
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How to accept the absurd?
#19112295 - 11/09/13 09:43 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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My whole life has been a quest to find meaning and the failure to do so. When i do accept the absurd it basically results in depression because i accept my life has no meaning. Is it possible to be happy while accepting the absurd?
-------------------- L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs
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jackSpearows
ShaRooooms !!!



Registered: 01/17/12
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Take stock in the pure sensual process that is your life. I feel like meaning comes to me naturally, I don't usually try and force it. Its usually nothing special tho, like if I jog alot the shower and food is meaningful afterwards. Stuff like that.
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White Beard

Registered: 08/13/11
Posts: 6,325
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Humans luckily have a built in mechanism for dealing with absurdity called laughter.
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jackSpearows
ShaRooooms !!!



Registered: 01/17/12
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Re: How to accept the absurd? [Re: White Beard] 1
#19112624 - 11/09/13 11:06 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
White Beard said: Humans luckily have a built in mechanism for dealing with absurdity called laughter.
I was just thinking how alot of times "the answer" is usually this --> or this --> depending on the kind of day it is.
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circastes
Big Questions Small Head



Registered: 01/14/10
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I'm starting to think philosophical contemplation is the beginnings of depression or a form of depression itself and brain chemicals alone determine your state of happiness, and your natural apprehension of life is enough.
-------------------- My solitude... My shield... My armour... TESTED WITH FULL FORCE
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quinn
some kinda love


Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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Re: How to accept the absurd? [Re: circastes]
#19112959 - 11/10/13 01:23 AM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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you think too much man (join the club ) @ cog, quests are generally pretty absurd.. the quest to find that precious 'meaning' stuff..
if you went to king arthur and were like, 'dude the holy grail is not real' he'd be pretty depressed.. probably go through all the stages denial, aggression, bargaining.. maybe he'd come round in the end..
but like idk the final stage 'acceptance' is probably also bs, maybe just another holy grail type scenario.. maybe king arthur would end up as some guru teaching acceptance, leading ppl to inner peace & eternal bliss or whatever....
yeep hope that was of help
-------------------- dripping with fantasy
Edited by quinn (11/10/13 01:39 AM)
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OrgoneConclusion
Blue Fish Group



Registered: 04/01/07
Posts: 45,432
Loc: Under the C
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quinn
some kinda love


Registered: 01/02/10
Posts: 6,799
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hah.. well that was suspenseful
-------------------- dripping with fantasy
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Libertin
Absurdist


Registered: 10/07/09
Posts: 959
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Re: How to accept the absurd? [Re: quinn]
#19113450 - 11/10/13 06:42 AM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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Your use of the word 'absurd' suggests that you might have read Albert Camus' work (one of my philosophical inspirations). But in case you're not familiar with it, here's a summarised sample from sparknotes.com/philosophy/sisyphus/summary.html
Quote:
The absurd is a contradiction that cannot be reconciled, and any attempt to reconcile this contradiction is simply an attempt to escape from it: facing the absurd is struggling against it. Camus claims that existentialist philosophers such as Kierkegaard, Chestov, and Jaspers, and phenomenologists such as Husserl, all confront the contradiction of the absurd but then try to escape from it. Existentialists find no meaning or order in existence and then attempt to find some sort of transcendence or meaning in this very meaninglessness.
Living with the absurd, Camus suggests, is a matter of facing this fundamental contradiction and maintaining constant awareness of it. Facing the absurd does not entail suicide, but, on the contrary, allows us to live life to its fullest.
I don't think it directly answers your question but it might set you on an interesting path of discovery to see what Camus believed. He thought that when faced with the absurdity of the human condition, we have three choices:
- Accept that life is meaningless and commit suicide
- Perform a logical leap of faith to avoid the problem. E.g. "Life's not absurd because Jesus saves! And I therefore know that my life has meaning."
- Embrace the absurdity (Camus advocates this option only). "The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy1." - Camus
1In the ancient Greek myth of Sisyphus, the character Sisyphus was punished to a futile life of labour, pushing a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down again, endlessly. Camus compared the futility of Sisyphus' punishing task to the human condition.
Edit: Cognitive_Shift, I've just realised you're in France, so assuming you can read French then you can read Camus in the original language that he wrote.. French! But I would be surprised now if you haven't already read his writings
Edited by Libertin (11/10/13 06:47 AM)
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Grapefruit
Freak in the forest


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Re: How to accept the absurd? [Re: quinn]
#19113483 - 11/10/13 07:04 AM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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Yeah I spend all day trying to find little scraps of meaning. The more I realise it's all bullshit the more bored I become. 
Every once in a blue moon the waves of acceptance wash over though and I feel just fine. I hope to feel more like that and less bored at least.
-------------------- Little left in the way of energy; or the way of love, yet happy to entertain myself playing mental games with the rest of you freaks until the rivers run backwards. "Chat your fraff Chat your fraff Just chat your fraff Chat your fraff"
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cez

Registered: 08/04/09
Posts: 5,854
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I think we create meaning. Its not something that's found, but rather cultivated over time.
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cez

Registered: 08/04/09
Posts: 5,854
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Re: How to accept the absurd? [Re: circastes]
#19113965 - 11/10/13 09:42 AM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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Quote:
circastes said: I'm starting to think philosophical contemplation is the beginnings of depression or a form of depression itself and brain chemicals alone determine your state of happiness, and your natural apprehension of life is enough.
I think the opposite. Philosophical contemplation I believe allows one to understand that any emotion/state of being will pass.
If one doesn't understand this idea, they may actually believe they are sadness instead of just the temporary feeling of sadness.
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Icelander
The Minstrel in the Gallery



Registered: 03/15/05
Posts: 95,368
Loc: underbelly
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Quote:
Cognitive_Shift said: My whole life has been a quest to find meaning and the failure to do so. When i do accept the absurd it basically results in depression because i accept my life has no meaning. Is it possible to be happy while accepting the absurd?
I'll get back to you. So far though the success rate is limited.
-------------------- "Don't believe everything you think". -Anom. " All that lives was born to die"-Anom. With much wisdom comes much sorrow, The more knowledge, the more grief. Ecclesiastes circa 350 BC
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absols
Stranger
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Re: How to accept the absurd? [Re: Icelander]
#19115199 - 11/10/13 02:31 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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dont accept it, why should you get angry if you reject anything ? this is absurd
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Cognitive_Shift
CS actual




Registered: 12/11/07
Posts: 29,591
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Re: How to accept the absurd? [Re: Libertin]
#19117260 - 11/10/13 08:58 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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There is meaning in my life. Meaning in the relationships i have with people, but those people are just as clueless about whats really going on as i am. It's just really hard to accept the absurd. I constantly fight to find closure and create a narrative to live by, but i know all the narratives are bullshit. I wish my perspective about my life didn't fall into this existential worldview but it just does. I haven't read camus specifically but he does define the absurd in the same way i do which i got from other philosophers. If i'm going to be honest with myself i have to accept there will be no closure it's just harder said than done.
-------------------- L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs
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absols
Stranger
Registered: 11/10/13
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define the word absurd ... you dont seem to know what that mean
like other people keep saying love is everything but how is it anything when it is only a word to use for anything, since it is not the least of reality to point objectively
you are doing the same with the word absurd
i told you what is absurd, this is absurd... using the word absurd absurdly... as if you are creating another mean... for what ?
to me by mentionning sartre you are proving the fallacy of it
sartre was a writer, his job was to create fallacy, it wasnt a study or philosophical ranting about absurdity...it was a story
and if you mean what life look like being stories written before they seem to be living, well it is not absurd but it clearly point powerful entities that dont give any to true existence while existing only by forcing poor conscious beings to play their roles in whatever creepy or useless story, this is not absurd this is logical ... would you give the truth anything yourself ? or would you enjoy using everything for yourself comfortable stable life if you got that chance ??
how is it absurd when you didnt create the body you are using as if it is yourself being when you cant be your body source, it means that there is other sources which logically wont care about you as a conscious in there
killing one another to live is not absurd, is the way of being to everything
being nice to one another is to die, logically you cant mean another being out of yourself being, you would die abstractly by the least of that meaning honestly being ..
what is absurd is that insistence to always invent something else, creating other issues that dont exist as if there werent enough issues already ...
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Cognitive_Shift
CS actual




Registered: 12/11/07
Posts: 29,591
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Re: How to accept the absurd? [Re: absols]
#19121664 - 11/11/13 04:37 PM (10 years, 3 months ago) |
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I'm using absurd as it's defined in relationship to existentialism. Searching to find meaning in the world and the inability to do so.
-------------------- L'enfer est plein de bonnes volontés et désirs
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NetDiver
Wandering Mindfuck


Registered: 08/24/09
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"One must imagine Sisyphus happy." - Albert Camus.
...Really though I just do tons of drugs and write; that's my answer.
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Rahz
Alive Again



Registered: 11/10/05
Posts: 9,252
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What's absurd, the searching itself or the inability to find?
-------------------- rahz comfort pleasure power love truth awareness peace "You’re not looking close enough if you can only see yourself in people who look like you." —Ayishat Akanbi
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redgreenvines
irregular verb


Registered: 04/08/04
Posts: 37,761
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In the short term. A matter of minutes. Everything is absurd as the contexts rapidly shift. What may not shift so quickly are your personally cultivated values
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