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This from Jack London’s Cruise of the Snark, when justifying a friend’s decision to take a sailboat around the world:
“The ultimate word is I LIKE. It lies beneath philosophy and is twined about the heart of life. When philosophy has maundered ponderously for a month telling the individual what he must do, the individual says in an instant I LIKE and does something else and philosophy goes glimmering. It is I LIKE that makes the drunkard drink and the martyr wear a hair shirt that makes one man a reveler and another man an anchorite, that makes one man pursue fame another gold another love and another God. Philosophy is very often a man's way of explaining his own I LIKE.”
We found this touches a chord with us. We also find that we need no grand philosophy to tell us what we must do, how we must act or behave. When we talk to non-absurdists about the absurd, they often wonder how we function in day to day life. The fact is we function quite well. We do what we like. We don’t need, for instance, to find great meaning in our job or crave money to do it well. We do it well because we enjoy it and that is all. I LIKE.
Recognizing that nothing matters doesn’t mean you have to behave like an idiot. It means you focus more on the present moment. You seek out things you enjoy doing for no other reason than it pleases you. I LIKE.
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Like that makes the drunkard drink and the martyr wear a hair shirt that makes one man a reveler and another man an anchorite, that makes one man pursue fame another gold another love and another God. Philosophy is very often a man's way of explaining his own like.
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