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How do you interpret this?
#11
RE: How do you interpret this?
(February 28, 2016 at 2:08 pm)robvalue Wrote:
(February 28, 2016 at 1:44 pm)*Deidre* Wrote: Suddenly, I feel comforted by this notion, and perhaps ...it also means that we take life too seriously? But, how about people who live in poverty, abuse, in the cross fire of war, etc...certainly, they don't see life as absurd...unless the unfairness of life, can be seen as ''absurd?'' Do you know what I mean?

Yes, I think some people do take life too seriously and end up missing a lot of enjoyment because of it.

I agree, absurdity is more likely to descend on those of us safe enough to spare it a thought. Those poor people fighting for their lives and living in misery probably just don't stop long enough to think it.

I've always thought life is absurd, as we're just plopped here with no instructions, or any idea what is really "real" or what's going on. We just have to get on with it. But I accept this, and try to make the best of it.

This too is excellent insight on the topic. One look at the presidential campaigns going on, and absurdity takes on a whole new meaning. That we really believe that one person or administration, is going to make all that much difference to the quality of life and the world, as a whole. Our wishful thinking becomes absurd even, in that regard.
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#12
RE: How do you interpret this?
(February 28, 2016 at 1:35 pm)*Deidre* Wrote: At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face. - Albert Camus

I ran across this quote today, and thought I'd ask you all here what does it mean to you? Is it meant to be taken in a grander way, that life is rather absurd, at the end of the day? Curious as to how you might interpret it on your own.

Absurdity as Camus means it is the absurdity of looking for inerent meaning and value in life where it is not possible to find it. From wikipedia entry on Camus: "he defines the human condition as absurd, as the confrontation between man's desire for significance, meaning and clarity on the one hand – and the silent, cold universe on the other. He continues that there are specific human experiences evoking notions of absurdity. Such a realization or encounter with the absurd leaves the individual with a choice: suicide, a leap of faith, or recognition."

Camus chooses the last option, and his book The Myth of Sisyphus is largely about living life under that condition. He seems (this is my uneducated view) to see nobility in the act of struggling on with knowledge of life's absurdity, though his philosophical basis for this I cannot remember (and I'm pretty sure never undrestood).
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#13
RE: How do you interpret this?
(February 28, 2016 at 7:16 pm)bennyboy Wrote:
(February 28, 2016 at 1:35 pm)*Deidre* Wrote: At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face. - Albert Camus

I ran across this quote today, and thought I'd ask you all here what does it mean to you? Is it meant to be taken in a grander way, that life is rather absurd, at the end of the day? Curious as to how you might interpret it on your own.

Absurdity as Camus means it is the absurdity of looking for inerent meaning and value in life where it is not possible to find it.  From wikipedia entry on Camus: "he defines the human condition as absurd, as the confrontation between man's desire for significance, meaning and clarity on the one hand – and the silent, cold universe on the other. He continues that there are specific human experiences evoking notions of absurdity. Such a realization or encounter with the absurd leaves the individual with a choice: suicide, a leap of faith, or recognition."

Camus chooses the last option, and his book The Myth of Sisyphus is largely about living life under that condition.  He seems (this is my uneducated view) to see nobility in the act of struggling on with knowledge of life's absurdity, though his philosophical basis for this I cannot remember (and I'm pretty sure never undrestood).

Wow, that is deeper than I'd have thought...thank you for sharing this!

In some ways, it's comforting to think as he does, and in other ways...not.  Undecided More absurdity? lol
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#14
RE: How do you interpret this?
I can't say I've ever come across the quote before, but looking at it now it seems to me to be on similar lines as this from Rosencrantz And Guildenstern Are Dead :

Quote:Guildenstern: "Hasn't it ever happened to you that all of a sudden and for no reason at all you haven't the faintest idea how to spell the word 'which'... or 'house'... because when you write it down you just can't remember ever having seen those letters in that order before?
[...]
All your life you live so close to truth, it becomes a permanent blur in the corner of your eye, and when something nudges it into outline it is like being ambushed by a grotesque."

Essentially, we tend to go about our lives wrapped in a kind of protective bubble wrap, cushioning us against the absurdity and horror that only occasionally seeps in from the reality of existence.

And I haven't even touched a drop yet.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist.  This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair.  Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second.  That means there's a situation vacant.'
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#15
How do you interpret this?
Ah, Camus...be still my heart. I love that quote. It kind of perfectly describes the moment I realized I was an atheist. I also really love this one:

"Accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful."
Nay_Sayer: “Nothing is impossible if you dream big enough, or in this case, nothing is impossible if you use a barrel of KY Jelly and a miniature horse.”

Wiser words were never spoken. 
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#16
How do you interpret this?
(February 28, 2016 at 7:16 pm)bennyboy Wrote:
(February 28, 2016 at 1:35 pm)*Deidre* Wrote: At any street corner the feeling of absurdity can strike any man in the face. - Albert Camus

I ran across this quote today, and thought I'd ask you all here what does it mean to you? Is it meant to be taken in a grander way, that life is rather absurd, at the end of the day? Curious as to how you might interpret it on your own.

Absurdity as Camus means it is the absurdity of looking for inerent meaning and value in life where it is not possible to find it. From wikipedia entry on Camus: "he defines the human condition as absurd, as the confrontation between man's desire for significance, meaning and clarity on the one hand – and the silent, cold universe on the other. He continues that there are specific human experiences evoking notions of absurdity. Such a realization or encounter with the absurd leaves the individual with a choice: suicide, a leap of faith, or recognition."

Camus chooses the last option, and his book The Myth of Sisyphus is largely about living life under that condition. He seems (this is my uneducated view) to see nobility in the act of struggling on with knowledge of life's absurdity, though his philosophical basis for this I cannot remember (and I'm pretty sure never undrestood).

Camus had a phobia of cars (understandably so given the time period he lived in), and was quoted once as saying the most absurd way he could imagine to die would be in a car crash. He died in a car crash in 1960 at age 46. This fact has always mesmerized me. The manner of his death practically DARES me to assign some kind of existential meaning or purpose to it. But alas, I must be strong. For, according to Camus, taking that "leap of faith" is tantamount to philosophical "suicide."

"I looked up at the mass of signs and stars in the night sky and laid myself open for the first time to the benign indifference of the world.”

-The Stranger
Nay_Sayer: “Nothing is impossible if you dream big enough, or in this case, nothing is impossible if you use a barrel of KY Jelly and a miniature horse.”

Wiser words were never spoken. 
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