“The absurd is born of the encounter between two opposed concepts: the human need for meaning and the apparent meaninglessness of the universe.” – Albert Camus
Yesterday was the inauguration of the 47th president of the United States of America. It was also MLK Day. Then, overnight, it snowed in Austin. I woke up early this morning, peeked outside, then got back into bed and laid there in the dark for another hour just… thinking.
Like most humans, I’m a pattern-seeker. This innate ability is finely honed after many years of religious indoctrination based in confirmation bias. Which is to say, I’m a fucking pro at synthesizing information and making it work for me.But I don’t actually think my pattern recognition skills are helping me anymore. Because as I’ve expanded my view, as I investigate all the variables and possible motives for how and why the world operates the way it does, I’ve come to a philosophical conclusion I can no longer deny: None of it actually makes sense. That is, it’s absurd.
I was most certainly aided in this realization with the help of Albert Camus, whose philosophy has been labeled as “Absurdism” (though I’m not sure if he embraced that label or not). Camus wrote a lot about human nature and the conflict we have between the chaotic reality in which we find ourselves, and our desperate need to find meaning and purpose within it.
When I first “met” Camus, I had already come to many of these conclusions – or at least – I had some inkling. Reading him felt like an epiphany. Not intellectually, but emotionally. Because it’s very, very hard to navigate the world while feeling like no one sees what you’re seeing. Absurdism helped (or rather, is still helping) me get over my need for dogma, my philosophical appeals to authority, and my fear of not ‘doing life right’. But old habits die hard.
So this morning as I was laying in bed thinking about the state of the world, I began to try to make sense of it. To come up with a single theory that explains how all this bullshit keeps happening again and again. How rich and powerful men with oversized egos continue to try to define reality for us, according to their desires. How nation-states can justify crushing human beings under their power in the name of “freedom” and “humanity.”
This leads one down a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories and other abstract ideas where unknown facts are assigned personal fears, and no one is trustworthy. Which is actually insane. But hey, at least I recognize it.
The point here is that, despite my clinging to a need for a reason all this bullshit is happening, there is no cohesive narrative. There is natural chaos, and there are people who – throughout space and time – derive power by taking advantage of the fear and weakness that chaos evokes within us, feeding us a line of dogma that assuages our fears while keeping us subservient to them.
So what’s the antidote? How can we overcome our fears? Make peace with the absurdity of existence? Refuse to play along with the corruption? Still want to stay alive and keep fighting for what’s good and right? How do we do this without taking refuge in false constructs and the systems that violate our values and principles in the name of “safety” and “security”?
I’m gonna be real with you, friend. I don’t think there’s any way to do this without a moral courage and intellectual fearlessness that is rooted in nothing except our shared humanity. Not allegiance to a tribe, a state, a culture or a community. Not a club or a church or anything else that separates people into inequitable categories. And certainly not with the help of some “god” who speaks with the voice of men.
This is something each and every one of us has to do for ourselves. We have to dig deep, find our moral core and insist that there is nothing and no one who can force us to hate, fear or loathe another human being. We have to admit the interconnectedness of all things, look past our animal instincts, and ask ourselves – what is good for ALL of us? Now, and in the future?
As we head into a new year and a new presidential administration, I hope you’ll reflect on how we can find that courage each day, anew. Remember, courage doesn’t mean an absence of fear. It means acting regardless of your fears.
There will never be a safe and cozy place from which to resist fascism or build an equitable civic culture. Our task is to be brave enough individually so that our shared vision for peace and can take root. This means taking risks. It means civil disobedience. It means nonviolent resistance and undermining systems that are actively oppressing others. It means breaking the “law” and refusing to respect “authority.”
I’ll close by asking you two rhetorical questions:
At what point can you no longer go along with the abuses of power (including the denial of human rights) and false narratives that are being used to manipulate cultures, markets and politics?
And once you get to that point, what are you willing to do about it?
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