Watched a video of Jordon Peterson grilled by a BBC journalist although not philosophy it was educating. Another video on gratitude brought them almost to tears. Finally I read this paper from the Internet about Albert Camus.
The
meaning of life: Albert Camus on faith, suicide, and absurdity
Albert Camus was a
Franco-Algerian philosopher with some great insights on the meaning
of life, why you should look to this life and not the next, and why
suicide is a poor choice.
Albert Camus was a
Franco-Algerian writer who preferred not to be called a philosopher.
He is often associated with the existentialist school of thought,
though he preferred to be considered separately from it. His life and
way of thinking are rather different from most philosophers and even
the existentialists he is grouped in with.
His ideas on how to
live our lives and deal with existence are bold and often less than
comforting. Despite this, he can give us insights into how to cope
with our existential dread and offers us some suggestions on how to
live our meaningless lives.
On suicide
“There is only one
really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide,” so
claims Camus in his essay The Myth of Sisyphus.* By starting with the
question of whether life is worth living, Camus places the problem of
how we are to live our lives squarely in the centre of his thought.
For many people, a
life without meaning is not a life worth living. Camus understands
this and tackles the problem head-on. He concludes that suicide is of
little use to us, as there can be no more meaning in death than in
life, and turns to questions of what makes life worth living. When it
comes to what meaning we might find, however, he is of little help.
The meaning of
life
Camus makes a rather
bold claim on the meaning of life: there isn’t one and we can’t
make one either. He argues that it is impossible for us to find a
satisfying answer to the question of the meaning of life, and any
attempt to impose a meaning on the universe will end in disaster, as
whatever meaning we pick will be sent up later. He further denies
that science, philosophy, society, or religion could ever create a
meaning of life that would be immune to the problem of absurdity.
The absurd
Camus’ entire
philosophy is based on the idea of the absurd. Humans have a drive to
find meaning in things and where it doesn’t exist we usually try to
create it. However, as the universe is cold and indifferent to this
quest for meaning we will always be faced with absurd situations
where our attempts to find meaning fail. Our lives are meaningless
and will remain so.
However, Camus
doesn’t see this meaninglessness as bad. He explains that to
understand that life is absurd is the first step to being fully
alive. While the problem of living in a world devoid of meaning is a
big one, it is one to be solved like any other.
What makes life
worth living then?
Across his body of
work, he praises sunshine, women, the beach, kissing, dancing, and
good food. He loved sports and was a champion soccer player in his
youth. He took great enjoyment in the little things and encourages us
to do so as well. Just because life is meaningless doesn’t mean it
can’t be enjoyable! Indeed, the meaninglessness is just a
background fact, like gravity, that must be reckoned with.
The absurd hero
Camus has a critique
of those who try to endure the meaninglessness of life by imposing
meaning on it. While that can bring us comfort, those systems of
meaning are, themselves, doomed to failure over the long run. The
universe remains indifferent to us, random events happen, and we will
again face meaninglessness.
He points out that
Kierkegaard, for example, understood that life was absurd but fled
towards God rather than embracing the fact. The French
existentialists also did this in a secularized way which is why Camus
didn’t identify with them.
Camus would later
fall out with his former friends over their support of Soviet and
later Chinese Communism. An event with ramifications that lasted the
rest of their lives.
Camus tells us that
the answer is to embrace the meaninglessness. The person who can
truly know that life is absurd and get through it with a smile is an
Absurd Hero. Camus was a real-life example and he sighted the
literary examples of Don Juan and Sisyphus for us to look to. “We
must imagine Sisyphus happy,” he tells us, for the absurd hero is
able to carry out a life as meaningless as eternally rolling a
boulder up a hill and find enjoyment in it anyway.
He also encourages
us to reject the idea of an afterlife because it is not only unlikely
but also because an attempt to live in such a way as to assure you
get into the next life detracts from this one. Trying to justify this
life by pointing to the next one is just another way to deny the
meaninglessness of life, no matter how you phrase it.
So, what should I
do today?
Camus recommends
that you: get outside, enjoy the sunshine, go for a walk by the
beach, play some football, have lunch at a café with a friend,
refuse to give into despair, and embrace the meaninglessness of
existence by choosing to carry on with what you enjoy doing despite
the lack of meaning to your actions.
Can we find a
meaning of life that can satisfy our need for one? Camus says no, but
that this needn’t be a problem. We are still living here and now
and have every ability to enjoy ourselves. Life is worth living and
should be embraced as it is. While it is difficult to face
meaninglessness without retreating into the loving arms of religion,
science, society, or even producing meaning ourselves, Camus
encourages us to bravely face the absurd with a smile on our face.
New Study Reveals the Surprising Effects of Spirituality on the Brain
The
study’s findings are in line with other similar research aimed at
demonstrating a correlation between a person’s predominant state of
mind, brain functioning and other physical reactions in the body. For
example, a recent study by Kaliman et al. (2014) found that intensive
meditation positively affected gene
expression.
The expression of genes that are involved in inflammation, and more
generally in the body’s stress response, were downregulated,
meaning that these processes were reduced or muted, which positively
affects a number of markers for overall health and wellbeing.
Changes
in gene expression are likely related to many of the actual physical
changes the brain experiences as a result of meditation
and mindfulness practices,
as well as one’s overarching beliefs and thought patterns such as
those found in the participants who placed a high degree of emphasis
on spirituality.
The
rapidly expanding field of neuroscience is discovering in short order
that the brain is actually an incredibly dynamic organ that responds
to our mental patterns and habits, either directly or indirectly, and
can cause a cascade of other related changes in the body. Armed with
this knowledge, it becomes crystal clear that our state of mind is
hugely important in our overall health and wellbeing and that
adopting time-honoured spiritual practices such as meditation and
mindfulness, are simple, yet highly effective ways to realize these
benefits.
*Camus uses the
Greek legend of Sisyphus, who is condemned by the gods for eternity
to repeatedly roll a boulder up a hill only to have it roll down
again once he got it to the top, as a metaphor for the
individual's persistentstruggle
against the essential absurdity of
life
