More on murder, etc.

A commenter named Garak raised an interesting objection to our recent post on the issue of murder. In sum, he argued that societies need laws because without them, "'negative' behavior would become more common and extreme." Well, this may very well be so - after all, we must assume that at least part of people's reluctance to commit crimes is their desire not to go to jail. Indeed, our entire justice system is based on this principle (well, that and the also-human nature urge to punish people for bad behavior, which explains why so many are eager to send the current version of Roman Polanski to prison for actions of the 1977 version).

But back to Garak's point--this is certainly a consensus view, but does it hold water? In fact, we are not so sure... Indeed, one of the oft-discussed areas of philosophy over the years has been the issue of altruism - why does it exist, and does it confer any evolutionary benefits? There are several views and we will not get into them here, but we can surely say that not only do humans have a capacity for empathy, but they also seem to genuinely care about the well being of other people. So we do not view it as a fait accompli that fewer (or no) laws would lead to an outbreak of "bad behavior"; indeed, one could argue just the opposite - that without specific laws to guide them, people might think more carefully about their actions. (This is very similar to the unfounded arguments many make against libertarianism - that without laws society would devolve into some twisted version of Mad Max. It is based on the same flawed premise - that people are inherently evil, and only restrained by threat of punishment. In our opinion this is a sad and pathetic view of humanity.) Said a different way--one who worries purely about getting caught is surely more likely to commit a crime than one who views it as "wrong."

Further, consider other animals, which do not have "laws" as such, and yet somehow manage not to kill themselves off in a frenzy of orgiastic murder. How can this be? Think about it...

Finally, getting back to the original point of the piece...no matter how "wrong" certain behavior seems to us, the absurd view (that all is physical, and thus nothing "matters") is simply not consistent with the concept of morality. Consider an individual who captured other people and animals, bound them thoroughly, and spent days or weeks feasting on their still-alive remains. Horrible, no? And yet, our children have been watching a spider do this outside one of our windows for the last few weeks. Is the spider evil? Mentally unbalanced? Should we incarcerate it and try to "re-educate" it? If it escapes, should we pursue it and seek to jail it whenever we happen to catch it?

We are no different from spiders (or eels, or cow dung, or even a slab of granite), despite the fact that our self-reflective brains make us view such a statement as beyond ridiculous. We may, as humans, seek to live in ways that make us feel better, and more comfortable, and that (crucially!) maximize our chance for genetic reproduction. But we should not fall into the all-too-easy trap of believing our actions, emotions, and "beliefs" are in any way different from other physical processes--one might as well ascribe meaning to sea tides or cloud formations.

But while the absurd man recognizes this fact, it is inaccurate (and misguided) to assume he will simply act with impunity. In fact, the opposite is far more likely. As the philosopher Derek Parfit once said about his recognition of the absurd:

"My life seemed like a glass tunnel, through which I was moving faster every year, and at the end of which there was darkness...When I changed my view, the walls of my glass tunnel disappeared. I now live in the open air. There is still a difference between my life and the lives of other people. But the difference is less. Other people are closer. I am less concerned about the rest of my own life, and more concerned about the lives of others."

For those interested, Parfit's new book On What Matters publishes tomorrow - we are eagerly awaiting our copy...

A Bone to Pick with You, Camus

We have in the past discussed the "problem" of murder for the absurd; i.e., if nothing matters, then what's to stop one from going on a killing spree, and clearly that is wrong, ergo the absurd is not a valid (or at least not consistent) philosophy. Our response has been to cite Camus' own rejoinder to this, discussed at length in The Rebel, which is basically that once one chooses to go on living (rather than commit suicide), one has thus adopted at least a minimum set of values (that life is preferable to death), and cannot impose a separate value judgment on others (by taking their lives).

However, something about this always nagged at us. While we liked the elegance of the theory, there was a part of us that felt it was a bit of smoke and mirrors; a trick of the light, if you will. Moreover, we have made a separate argument against killing elsewhere--namely, in order to choose to kill (and here we are talking about premeditated, or at the very least willful actions) one must believe one's own state of affairs will be improved by the killing, and this is clearly inconsistent with the absurd.

But, it now occurs to us, given the second reason, what need have we for the first? In other words, the question is not whether the absurd man is "free" to commit murder, but rather why one who believes all to be meaningless would ever feel the urge to commit such an act. Indeed, the true absurd man should not view others as separate and distinct from "himself," but rather as equivalent beings. One could even argue the absurd man should, insofar as he recognizes the futility of life and others do not, place others' wants and needs above his own.

Now that we have got over our own mental hurdle--basically, that we were so desperate to avoid advocating murder that we accepted what seems now like a clumsy and half-baked theory--it seems apparent that to adopt Camus' view here is to invalidate much, if not all, of the absurd itself! For how can one argue that it is permissible to kill all animals except humans, unless one holds that humans are someone "better" than other animals? And isn't the point that such a view is incompatible with the meaninglessness of existence?

Ah ha! you say, haven't we simply laid a trap for ourselves? For since we have just argued, much as Camus did, that the absurd man would not commit murder, then how can we eat meat (or step on an ant)? Isn't all life equal? Are we, or are we not, drawing the same inconsistent conclusion?

We are not. Instead, we are arguing something likely far more troubling to some--that the idea of human "morals" are an illusion, as we are animals like any other, no more or less culpable for our actions than a mosquito, ant, or vulture. Notice the distinction here - we are not saying it is "wrong" for the absurd man to kill, but rather that we cannot conceive of a circumstance where the absurd man would feel any interest in this act, at least in part because he can empathize with the pain and emotions of other humans, even as he knows such things are illusory. But to kill a cow in order to eat seems no more "wrong" than a spider trapping insects in its web. It is only our illusion of consciousness that gives us the false belief our actions "matter" more than those of other animals.

To address the obvious rejoinder--yes, we are saying it would not be wrong to kill and eat another human in the absence of other food. But nor would it be wrong to do so with abundant supplies of food--the concepts of right and wrong, while compellingly seductive, are simply not compatible with the view of existence as illusory and meaningless.

What do you know - looks like we're nihilists after all...

Estoy Contento

It means, “I’m happy.” We’ve been taking Spanish since Thanksgiving. We thought it would an entertaining and useful thing to try and take up a second language. And it has been.

Our teacher recommended we read Spanish poetry to help us appreciate the rhythm and beauty of the language. We chose Antonio Machado since he wrote one of our favorite poems, which we find quite absurd.

We picked up Borders of a Dream, a bilingual edition of collected poetry translated by Willis Barnstone and proceeded to read.

This edition features some biographical commentary in the beginning and we warmed up to Machado immediately. John Dos Passos writes of him: “He gave the impression of being helpless in life’s contests and struggles, a man without defenses… Long ago he accepted the pain and ignominy of being what he was, a poet, a man who had given up all hope of reward to live for the delicately imagined mood, the counterpoint of words, the accurately recording ear.”

Juan Ramon Jimenez writes: “A poet of death, Antonio Machado spent hour after hour meditating upon, perceiving and preparing for death… All our life is usually given over to fearing death and keeping it away from us, or rather, keeping ourselves away from it. Antonio Machado yielded to it in large measure…”

And finally, Barnstone writes that of the Spanish poets of the 20^th century, Machado is “the least pretentious.” Also, that “the poet read and loved philosophy.”

It shows in many thoughtful poems:

“Learn to wait. Wait for the tide to flow,

as a boat on the coast. And don’t worry

when it buoys

you out. If you wait, you will know

victory,

for life is long and art a toy.

And if life is short

and the sea doesn’t reach your galleon, stay

forever waiting in port,

for art is long, and never matters anyway.”

Or this:

“In my solitude

I have seen very clear things

that are not true.”

Or this:

“One day we sat down by the road to wait.

Our life is time and now our only care

is all these desperate poses we must bear

waiting for her. But she won’t skip the date.”

Or this absurd snapshot:

“Empirical faith. We’re not nor will be.

All our life is on loan. We brought nothing.

With nothing we leave.”

Machado’s poetry drifts over dreams and the blurry line between them and memories of experience, of the temporal nature of both… of landscapes, remembered and imagined, as allegories of human existence and emotions. And there many poems around traveling and wandering along roads.

The greatest of these is the one that begins simply,

“Caminante, son tus huellas

el camino, y nada más;

caminante, no hay camino…”

“Walker, your footsteps are

are the road, and nothing more.

Walker, there is no road…”

Who is the “real” you?

Yesterday’s Financial Times carried a review of The Ego Trick by Julian Baggini. We’ve not read the book, but it seems to raise many absurd questions and touches on many absurd themes.

The reviewer begins, “The problem of self-understanding is a perennial one. But even before you tackle it there is a prior problem: making sense of selfhood itself. What is a ‘self’?”

Is there is a physical part of you that makes you, you? No, there is no physical “seat of personal identity.”

Is there is some transcendent self, some kind of soul? “Whatever stuff you are made from,” the author writes, “is the same kind of stuff that everything else is made of.”

Then there are more interesting questions such as the effect of brain tumors that destroy the “self,” along with severe head injuries, dementia and the like. What do these say about who the real self was or is? And then there are life-transforming experiences that alter self, such that the person that was is very different from what that person is after the event.

Baggini argues that self is achieved through an ego trick. “Namely,” the reviewer sums up, “that of constructing a strong sense of connectedness and continuity out of fragmented experiences… by our fashioning an autobiography for ourselves.”

The self is essentially an illusion – a powerful illusion, but an illusion nonetheless.

The reviewer calls it “one of the best, most readable and most stimulating introductions yet written about this intriguing topic.”

As we say, we’ve not read it and may never get to it, but we highlight it here as tackling a fascinating line of thought. If you’ve read it, let us know what you think by posting your comments on the book and its conclusions below.

The Power of Mother Nature

“When you are in a huge, empty waterworld you gain a new perspective on life and the universe and that sort of thing. The antics of violent men seem absurd and irrelevant on a planet where nature casually demonstrates the power to sweep us all away.”

- Gavin Bell, Somewhere over the Rainbow: Travels in South Africa

Yes, nature is powerful and awe-inspiring and it makes humanity look like a small trifling matter… which it is, of course.

The quote from Bell up top comes from a book of travels we’re reading on South Africa. Bell takes a ship from Tilbury and the comment comes after passing within 100 miles of a war zone in Sierra Leone. At night, he sees flashes from heavy artillery – and at that distance and with perspective, he sees the comical and ridiculous nature of it, “as if a mischievous god was playing around with a galactic light switch,” he writes.

This got us thinking, too, of the Japanese disaster…

We’ve not commented on the Japanese earthquake and tsunami, though we might be expected to. After all, doesn’t this disaster show us in stark terms how tiny a human life is in the grand vastness of the universe? As historian Will Durant supposedly quipped, “Civilization exists by geological consent, subject to change without notice.” Do these things not bring an absurd epiphany (at least for some)?

Of course, they do.

All of these things remind us how we’re barely here at all in a geologic or cosmic sense. They remind us how we could be dead any minute. They remind us of our smallness.

But… while these things bring about feelings of the absurd, they are not what make life absurd.

We used to think otherwise, but Thomas Nagel has since set us straight on this point:

“For suppose we live forever; would not a life that is absurd if it lasted seventy years be infinitely absurd if it lasted through eternity? And if our lives are absurd given our present size, why would they be any less absurd if we filled the universe (either because we were larger or the universe was smaller)?”

Indeed… Our mayfly-like existence has nothing to do with it. If we lived forever, our lives would still be absurd.

The absurd is something deeper; it is when we step outside of ourselves and look at our lives from a perspective apart from the minutiae of living it. It’s when we ask “why”? Why do we do the things we do? Why do we bother fretting over a crease in our pants? Why do we care that the jackass in front of us cut us off? Why do ponder over what brand of peanut butter we prefer? These are “small” things… but the “big” things also don’t escape such doubt… Why do we care about our family? Why do we save for retirement? Why do work hard?

Unable to satisfy these doubts, we live on anyway. “The absurdity of our situation,” Nagel continues, “derives not from a collision between our expectations and the world, but from a collision within ourselves.”

Mother Nature, in all her power, may heighten that sense that life is absurd, but it is this clash that goes on in our minds, between the inescapable seriousness with which we pursue our lives and the realization that it is all for naught, that makes life absurd.

The urge to be king...

We stumbled on this bit of absurdity today - a NY City Councilman has introduced a bill that would "restrict toys to meals that contain fewer than 500 calories and 600 milligrams of sodium, and in which less than 35 percent of the calories come from fat (making exceptions for nuts, seeds, peanut butter or other nut-based butters). In addition, the meal would have to contain a half a cup of fruit or vegetables or one serving of whole-grain products."

Clearly the bill is aimed at McDonald's Happy Meals, and indeed the Councilman, Leroy Comrie, "said that he was motivated in part by his experiences with his own children, who are now 17 and 13. 'Both are fast-food aficionados, and it’s my fault,' he said. 'I’m not healthy. I’m the typical parent with no time and limited options, so you’re grabbing whatever is going to make your child happy. My wife has yelled at me repeatedly for grabbing Happy Meals.' Mr. Comrie, who admitted that he was 'seriously overweight,' said he hoped to 'beg and cajole' enough supporters to pass it."

So let's see if we've got this straight - Mr. Comrie has trouble controlling his urge to eat unhealthy food, and as a result wants to restrict others' right to do so.

Now, as we have often said, this is not a political blog, although we think our leanings (such as they are) are fairly apparent (and consistent with the absurd) - put simply, live and let live. Indeed, as we have discussed in the past, one of the more frequent rejoinders we get from people--if nothing matters, what's to stop you from just killing people?--is ridiculous on the face of it. The question should rightly be turned around - if nothing matters, how can you justify taking such actions? The only logical reason to kill people would be if you felt it improved "your" life in some way...but if nothing matters this is a meaningless proposition.

Similarly, we have been (and continue to be) surprised that there seems to be a correlation between the absurd and a "liberal" mindset (liberal as currently defined, not the classical liberals who believe more or less what we do). The rationale seems to be that "liberals" are compassionate, and seek to better others' lives through government.

But...............there is a world of difference between being compassionate in one's own dealings, and forcing others to behave in a similar fashion. Thus, we find it mildly amusing that so many believe (as we do) that nothing matters, and yet also believe in the "rightness" of forcing others to behave as they see fit.

We should note that this is a bipartisan affliction - indeed, when we sent the above piece to Inigo, his response was "Pathetic, but not surprising… It’s that kind of mentality that permeates all the big gov’t types, left and right."

Indeed. And here is where we can bring this full circle. For what can possibly explain this urge that possesses the vast majority of humankind? Why would anyone ever presume to tell another what to do, except in the rarest of cases (one's own life being threatened, for example)? Particularly when one considers people for whom adequate shelter, food, and clothing have been acquired, this behavior seems downright mystifying...

And unfortunately, the only answer we can come to is that such individuals are not, in fact, absurd. For the only reason to behave in such a manner is, as with achievement, or acquiring material objects, or even stockpiling facebook friends...to chase, however unconsciously, the chimera of immortality. (E.g., he was such a good man - he helped so many people.)

To give of oneself is compassionate, and reflective of the lack of self. To force another to give is another matter entirely...

Charles Addams, absurd cartoonist

“Just the kind of day that makes you feel good to be alive!”
- Caption from cartoon above, by Charles Addams

Today it is raining. It is a dark overcast day. People say it is a gloomy day.

But why should it be gloomy? It is a natural occurrence, as natural as the sun and the wind, as days and nights and the turning of the seasons.

Now maybe there is some chemical reaction in our brains that makes us feel less cheerful on dark days. But our guess is that we can change our perception by changing how we think about the world.

We’ve made a conscious effort over the years to buck this natural tendency to impute some kind of emotional content in the weather. When we hear someone say “What a miserable day!” we immediately think to ourselves, “Nope… it’s just a day like any other.”

In fact, we’ve managed to go further and enjoy the weather, whatever it may be. Rain is wonderful. Feel the water dribble down the back of your neck and moisten your face.

Our thoughts on weather today made us think of the Addams family. Yes, the Addams family.

They were the cartoon creations of Charles Addams. We have his first collection of cartoons from 1942, “Drawn & Quartered.” The vast majority of the cartoons appeared in the New Yorker in the 1930s and 40s. Of course, the Addams family has since gone on to the world of TV and movies. If you know the Addams family at all, it is likely through these mediums, not Addams’ original cartoons.

We loved the TV show as kids and remember watching re-runs. Some years ago we sought out the original cartoons. They are quite an achievement of wit and black humor. They give you a window to a bizarre world where our darker sides enjoy a little fun. (And not all the cartoons involved the Addams family.)

As Edward Rothstein wrote in the New York Times:

“We enter a world so perverse even wind-up toys commit suicide, bitter matrons ask in department stores to be directed to “blunt instruments,” and beams of light bearing divine illumination stream from the heavens only to shine on television antennas… One of the strange characteristics of contemporary bourgeois life is the sheer pleasure we take in inverting it. Uncomfortable with its promised comforts and disbelieving its reassurances, we maintain its manners but stand it on its head.”

Addams was brilliant. If the absurd has a cartoonist, we’d nominate Addams. For his gift was to turn traditional perception on its head. Invert, he did, with charm. He takes familiar scenes and makes them absurd, both in the philosophical sense and in the sense of making life ridiculous.

In the world of Addams, death is ever present. Suicide is an ongoing theme and the hangman’s noose a regular touchstone. But Addams treats these subjects lightly, without judgment. He makes death something to laugh at, something to accept.

One cartoon has a caption that reads: “In a rut, men?... Discouraged?... Life look hopeless?” And there on a street is a man selling hangman’s nooses, as casually as if he were hawking watches.

Or the boy scout who walks in on his father who is standing on a chair ready to hang himself… the caption reads, “Hey Pop, that’s not a hangman’s noose.”

Then there are the cartoons that deal with the Addams family itself.

You surely know these characters by now… Morticia, Gomez, Lurch, Wednesday, Pugsley, Grandmama and Uncle Fester, not to mention a small constellation of relatives and pets.

One thing that always struck me about the Addams family is that they were nearly always happy and accepting. It didn’t matter what others thought of them, they continued on their merry way. They had all kinds of oddball interests that they indulged enthusiastically (Gomez's love of destroying toy trains, Morticia's enthusiasm for meat-eating plants, etc.) And life for them always seemed a kind of game.

We think there is much that is absurd in Addams’ worldview. It makes us smile to think of his cartoons. And it makes us look out of our window, at the rainy, windy, dark day in a different way, in an absurd way… Today is a day like any other.

Random thoughts while sitting in a cab...

Medical advances mean life is no longer fragile, so rather than treating it as fleeting and temporary, we instead seek to prolong it as long as possible (maybe forever?). Death, rather than a normal part of life, has been relegated to back rooms, alleyways, and sterile hospital rooms, discussed only in terms of sadness and tragedy. Never joyful, never inevitable, never simply what is and what must be...but always tragic and unfortunate.

Is that why we rush around, seeking to do, and create, and achieve, more, more, ever more? For it cannot be for the joy of doing - no, these fires that burn within the human ego yearn for eternal consequence, a sense that all has not been--as it so clearly has been--in vain. To do less would be to...what? To acknowledge our own insignificance, impermanence, complete and utter pointlessness? Well, yes...

"He had a good life." What does this mean. How can one define it? Is it intended for the dead or the living? If the former, he can't hear you, but if the latter, what of it? Good life means nothing. Life means nothing. Nothing. Is it wrong to to define life as an illusion, trapped forever in an infinite eternity of nothingness?

Hyperbolic? Sure, but that's the point. Can you argue? Where am "I"? Where did I come from, and where will I go?

Not forever, you say - life is definitely not forever. But is it not? Can you imagine a world without..."you"? Sure, you say - I study history, I dream of the future. But who is the observer? If not you, then...who? Life is forever...for you. Even if you don't actually exist...

The easy thing to say is that there are no answers. But that's not it. The answer is right in front of us, stalking us, making us squirm. All this could be a figment of some alien dream, or a "test" by some all-powerful deity...or maybe "reality" is just as we imagine it. Doesn't matter. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. And the big wheel keeps on turning...

The never-ending tug of war

We have not posted in some time, due not to lack of ideas, but more from a general sense that everything we consider posting, we have already said. In short, we will have some insight, then begin to develop it (either on paper or in our head), only to wind up at a conclusion we have come to before. While we recognize the value in posting such thoughts anyway--the human grasp of the absurd is nothing if not fleeting--we have nevertheless shied away from treading the same paths over and over.

However, we recently realized that rather than a random collection of absurd thoughts, our ideas have of late had a remarkably consistent theme--the never-ending tug of war between our rational and instinctive brains. Said a different way, while we strongly believe the absurd point of view, the fact is that no matter how hard we try, how many totems we own, how simple a life we may live...we simply cannot jettison our human desires and emotions. We can, of course, exert some sort of control over reactions, and we have often discussed with Inigo the fact that our "recovery time" after getting upset has improved dramatically in recent years; yet, we still get upset.

What to make of this? Should we lament the fact that we will likely never shake these human tendencies? Or alternatively, should we shrug off the absurd when it suits us (say, when we are enjoying sex, food, or quiet reflections), and invoke it in more unpleasant circumstances?

The first option is easily dismissed. After all, if nothing matters (and this we know we have said before), then it doesn't matter if we know nothing matters; similarly, to wallow in self-pity--for any reason, but in this case, for frustration at our inability to live as if nothing matters--seems the antithesis of the absurd.

The second idea is a bit more complicated. And indeed, we sometimes feel we are living in just this manner--after all, when life is good what need is there to remind ourselves it's all an illusion? But before we explore this, allow us a quick digression.

As Inigo explored in his Gone Bamboo post, it is easier to live as if nothing matters when one surrounds oneself with very little in the way of possessions, family, or obligations; it is easier to "just live" when there are few demands on one's time. Now, of course, all such demands are self-imposed; nevertheless, it is easier to sit and watch the sunset when one's children are not screaming, or the phone ringing, or one's wife asking when the in-laws can come to visit.

But while it is unquestionably easier to live the "absurd life" when one has fewer commitments, is this because such an individual finds it easier to embrace the absurd...or has less need to do so?

We had a conversation recently with a colleague who told us she "could not do her job" if she lived as if life were absurd--the implication, of course, being that she would be unable to accomplish anything if she believed it were all pointless. But this is to miss the point entirely! Perhaps the most misunderstood aspect of the absurd is that it actually allows one to be more productive...if one chooses to live that way. After all, when one sheds worries about the future and past, it is much easier to focus on work in the present.

To bring this full circle, the question under review is whether, since people with fewer commitments have less "need" of the absurd, it should be viewed as a "crutch"--a tool used to shrug off disappointment, but eschewed in happier times.

The answer, of course, is an emphatic NO! Indeed, to even consider such a stance would be to misunderstand the absurd on a very fundamental level, and to mistakenly conflate happiness with contentedness. The latter is also something we have discussed before, and we find it to be more and more relevant as we consider different aspects of the absurd. In this case, the mistake is in assigning a value judgment to certain sets of circumstance, when all experience is equal.

Now, we of course realize such a sentiment is easier to say than to live...and thus the title of this post. What we have come to appreciate these past few years is that this constant tug-of-war between what we think and feel is not some sort of refutation of the absurd, or an argument in favor of using the absurd to boost our happiness. Instead, it is quite simply an unavoidable consequence of being human.

You can deconstruct sex all you want--the fact is it still feels really, really good. Conversely, few if any would choose to be tortured by electric shock. The fact that we ardently believe such experiences to be equivalent (in our rational brain), does not change our visceral reaction that they are radically different and one is clearly to be preferred over the other. But to take the view that the absurd should be viewed as a tool to help ease the pain of the latter, but ignored in the former, is difficult if not impossible to defend. For to do so is to acknowledge a belief that one is indeed preferable to the other, and this is clearly incompatible with the absurd.

That's enough for today--we're headed home to a nice glass of wine. The tug-of-war continues!

Totems

“Sisyphus is the absurd hero…”

- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

We recently watched the movie Inception, which deals with various absurd ideas. Christopher Nolan wrote, co-produced and directed the film, which was inspired by the idea of lucid dreaming (where you are aware you are dreaming) and the blurry lines between reality and dreams and time. (No worries, we won’t give anything away).

The characters in the film sometimes have a hard time separating what is a dream and what is real. (And in fact, one character in the film loses all touch with what is “real” and what is a “dream” – and the movie delightfully plays with these boundaries, such that viewers too will start to wonder what the difference is between the two… and if it even matters). And then are dreams within dreams, where someone is in a dream and has another dream. Things get murky, as you can imagine.

The characters in the film that can enter other people’s dreams are called “Extractors” because their mission often involves extracting information from a person’s subconscious.

One of the neat ideas in the film is the idea of “totems.” The Extractors all carry their own unique totems which serve to help them distinguish when they are in the “real world” and when they are in a “dream.” For example, the main character, Dom Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) carries a top which he spins. In the real world, the top eventually stops spinning and falls over. But in the dreamworld, it keeps spinning.

It’s an entertaining film and we would recommend it. But, what inspires this post is that idea of a totem, because we happen to have recently purchased something of an absurd totem. You can see the picture of it at the top of this post. It’s a watch with a little man pushing a rock around and around and around… Inside the face of the watch is the word “Sisyphus,” repeated in a spiral to the center.

What a great idea! We should have thought of it…The Myth of Sisyphus you may well know and we’ve sprinkled this blog with references to the old Greek myth. In essence, Sisyphus – as a form of punishment - pushes a rock up a mountain only to have it roll back. He descends the mountain and pushes again, only to have the same thing happen. He repeats this endlessly, pushing his rock over and over again.

To Albert Camus, Sisyphus is the absurd hero because he knows his task is meaningless and futile and yet he continues anyway. Sisyphus teaches us that a meaningless existence can lose its power over us once we recognize it and accept it. The struggle itself is enough. As Camus writes, “[Sisyphus] too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile.”

Sisyphus is not a despairing figure at all in Camus’ absurd worldview. Instead, he is a figure of stubborn happiness. “One must imagine Sisyphus happy,” he writes.

The watch, then, is our absurd totem. It reminds us that life is absurd. We look down at our wrist and see that little fellow pushing that rock and we can't help but smile. Life is absurd and all is well.

(If you are interested in where we got ours, you can find it here, animated even:

http://www.philosophersguild.com/index.lasso?page_mode=Product_Detail&cat=watch&skip=6&item=0261)

An absurd totem doesn’t seem a bad thing. We have a laughing Buddha that sits on our desk, too, as a kind of reminder to laugh off the world’s troubles. Another sits on our nightstand, greeting us every morning and wishing us sweet dreams every night. We’d encourage you too to find something, however simple or small, to remind you of that perspective.

And imagine what a great conversation starter this watch will make.

“What’s that watch you have there?”

“Well, it’s Sisyphus pushing his rock. Let me explain. You see…”