(February 28, 2016 at 2:08 pm)Jörmungandr 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.
I believe the sense in which he means it is that life is utterly absurd, but most of the time we manage to evade coming face to face with this fact, because it is an uncomfortable realization. Thus we use various subterfuges to avoid coming to this realization in our every day life. Sometimes these subterfuges are unsuccessful, however, and we come face to face with the absurdity of existence; we are ambushed by this uncomfortable realization that nothing means anything.
This is an excellent observation of it all, and it reminds me of a thought that has been recurring lately for me...and that is...I've been thinking of my grandmother a lot lately, and how she won't be at my wedding this year. And how I have pushed away love and the idea of marriage, and then now that I am getting married...she won't be there. Someone who meant the world to me, won't be there. And then I think, she was here one day...and then poof...gone. And it's as though she never lived at all, and only exists in my memories, now. Of course, she touched many lives, but it is in these moments that I think of how absurd it is that I get sad that I didn't fall in love sooner...or get married sooner...and she would have been there. That much of our own negative thoughts and such come from absurdity. That we create gravity in a situation where none need to be. I think of all the people who came before us, and their lives mattered certainly, but it's as though they never lived at all. That we are here for a brief time, and then gone...and in my faith perspective, I see all of this slightly different than i did as an atheist, but...it still doesn't change the fact that there is a sense of absurdity to it all. Belief in a deity doesn't really remove that human feeling.
