Religion and The Absurd

There are times at which I envy religious people. Their sense of determination, of knowing where all of this is about and what to do with it, can seem very alluring at times. Like it can really put your mind at ease. And why wouldn’t it? After all, religious people always know that, no matter what they are faced with in life, they will always be able to come up with an explanation that is 100 percent bulletproof. An explanation that always points to the one single source of everything. Down to God himself. That truly must be a peaceful mindset, right?

Wrong. Reality contradicts this assumption. For it seems fair to say that religions, or differences in religion, are an important – if not the most important – cause of war in this world of ours. And since war is – by definition – not peaceful, it is fair to say that not all theists experience peaceful consequences through adhering to their religion.

But this article is not an attempt to criticize religion. This article zooms in at the different positions regarding religion, and the reasonableness – or unreasonableness – of each.

Teapot
First of all atheism. I have established that I am not an atheist. For to be an atheist, one must reject to believe in the existence of deities. And I most certainly do not reject believing in deities. At least: not as long as it is someone else who does the believing; not me, for I don’t believe in any deity.

Neither do I consider myself to be an agnostic. An agnostic claims that one will never be able to prove or disprove the existence of deities. Therefore one should postpone judgement (possibly indefinitely) about the existence of any deity. Agnosticism as thus defined doesn’t seem to be unreasonable. However, it leaves one with an unwanted consequence, being: one can reflect only on those entities that definitely do or definitely do not exist.

Let me clarify this. Suppose I say that – somewhere in space – there is a teapot floating around. The existence of this teapot can neither be proved nor disproved. Should we hence be agnostic about its existence? This seems unreasonable, for we might have reasons to suppose that the existence of such a teapot is extremely improbable. But notions such as probability do not make any sense from an agnostic point of view. For how can something be more or less probable, given the fundamental assumption that one cannot make any reasonable judgement about the existence of entities that cannot be proved or disproved? If the latter would be true, one cannot talk about probability; for probability – or at least everything between 0 and 100 percent – is not absolute like a proof or disproof. If one cannot accept this consequence, one should not be an agnostic.

But then the unavoidable question pops up: what then am I? Is there a group of like-minded people I belong to? Is there a religion or a philosophy that suits my particular ideas and intuitions? Or am I forever doomed to wander around lonely on this earth of ours, searching for my very own, not yet formulated, views on life?

Baby Jesus
The answer is no. Because recently something special happened: my very own baby Jesus was born. My lord and saviour. While surfing on the internet, I stumbled upon the philosophical position called ‘absurdism’, and I was hooked right away. What is absurdism? The best way to explain it, is to zoom in at its fundamental notion: the Absurd. The ‘Absurd’ refers to ‘the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any’. Note that absurdism does not consider it to be ‘logically impossible’ to find meaning in life; it just considers it ‘humanly impossible’ to do so. That is a subtle but very important distinction. It is this distinction that implies that, even though there might be an absolute meaning of life floating around somewhere in this universe of ours, we – simple human beings of flesh and blood – will never be able to find it.

And that’s it, right? We simply cannot come to know how things ‘truly’ are, including the ‘true meaning’ of life. We are doomed to live within the boundaries of our own little worlds. We are unable to trade our points of view for any other humanly conceivable point of view. The latter implies that we can never come to an absolute grasp of ‘the truth’; supposing that such a thing would exist. Surely: if everyone would develop the same beliefs about what is true and what is not, about what is right and what is not, seemingly universal ideas tend to emerge. But the question we must then ask ourselves is: were these ideas universal before people considered them to be so? Or did they become universal because everyone believed them?

Meaning
A note of caution is in place. For an absurdist does not always lead a happy life. There is always one major danger hiding in the corner. Absurdism implies the absolute freedom of humanity, the non-existence of any shackles besides the ones we have created ourselves. But sometimes this destined freedom of ours conflicts with what is the human longing for certainty. A longing to know how things truly are; a need to know who or what is behind all this craziness we call life. Absurdism claims that we cannot come to know these certainties. And when this observation strikes, it strikes hard: a feeling of powerlessness tends to take control over our minds and bodies. That’s an inevitable consequence of appreciating the Absurd.

But then, a little later, when you get yourself together, and taste again of the juices of total meaninglessness, of total freedom, you realize that you have found true love after all. You will realize that it is the only path leading to something that at times comes close to meaning. For even though the absurdist knows that he will not find any absolute meaning of life, it is in the very act of trying to find it, that he finds fulfilment. The fulfilment he is longing for. The fulfilment he proudly calls life.

Have you ever thought about what your most fundamental beliefs are? Upon what beliefs you have built your life? And have you ever asked yourself why those are the beliefs that have the authority to determine the remainder of your framework of beliefs?

But what do you think?

Why You Should Always Respect the Dustman

I have been a dustman for a while. And even though my stay in the ‘dustman-community”’ was short, I was long enough to become overwhelmed by the disrespect these people receive from their fellow species members. People are yelling things at them. People are telling them how shitty their job is. People treat them like the true pieces of garbage. I was wondering what the dustmen themselves were thinking about their profession. Were they also disgusted about what they were doing? I decided to ask them.

And this is what they told me: they absolutely loved what they were doing. They were proud of being the dustman of district x or district y. They took care of the streets that fell under their supervision. These were after all their streets, and their streets should not be dirty. One of the dustmen told me very proudly about his dustmen-crew. He said that, within the dustmen-community, his crew could be compared to FC Barcelona; that’s how well they anticipated each other’s actions. Dustman A knew exactly that, when Dustman B grabbed on to a new dustbin, he should be in the process of taking away his bin.

So it seems that people differ, to say the least, in what they like and what they don’t like to do for a living. And that’s a good thing, right? Of course it is. Because the fact that each one of us wants to do something different for a living makes that all the jobs that are required to keep our society functioning are filled. If everyone wanted to become a big time actor, no-one would be cleaning the streets of Hollywood. At least, not for a while. Because the demand for dustmen, and therefore the wages, would increase sooner or later thanks to the ‘beautiful’ mechanisms of the free market.

Also, the fact that people appreciate different ways to make their money provides you and me with the opportunity to make a unique contribution to this world of ours. And – I believe – it is only if you do what you like to do that you are likely to put the most effort in doing it. And, subsequently, it is only when you put serious effort into doing something that you are likely to make a difference. And it the ambition to ‘make a difference’, whether it is by cleaning the streets or by writing an article, that gives that feeling of happiness and fulfilment we are all so desperately longing for.

The moral of this story should be clear: never disrespect anyone or feel pity for anyone because of what they do for a living. Remember that (hopefully) most of us are doing something that we like to do. Be thankful for whatever their contribution to society might be, since it is because of their contribution that you and I can do the job that we like to do. Whatever that might be.

But what do you think?

Interest Cannot be Created: It Can Only be Discovered

‘Are you interested in the stock market?’ I asked a colleague of mine, who works as a economics editor at a newspaper, and hence has to write about stocks, markets etc. ‘I have to’, he said, ‘It is part of my job’. ‘You cannot have to be interested in something. You either are or you are not interested. Period.’ I replied. ‘You can get used to something, but you cannot become interested in something.’ He smiled at me, and walked away; I think he agreed.

Intrinsic
There is a huge difference between interests and skills: while you can develop the latter, you cannot develop the former. Interests are an intrinsic part of your nature; they define, to a large extent, who you are. If you are, for whatever reason, interested in history, you will tend to become ‘better at’ history. Maybe even choose a history related job. But you are good at it, because you find it interesting. It is not because you are good at something, that you are interested in it. That is impossible.

And that brings us to the difficulty of interests. If someone tells you: ‘Just do whatever you find interesting. Find a job you like, and then do just do it,’ it seems like reasonable advice. And if you know what you’re interested in, it might even be helpful advice. But the problem starts if you don’t know what you are interested in. Because, interests being an intrinsic part of your identity, you cannot create an interest in something. You can become better, or worse, at doing something; you can even get used to it. But you cannot become interested in it.

Do something
But what then should you do if don’t know what you are interested in? If it all starts with knowing what you find interesting, and then just doing that, then it seems like you are on a dead end if you don’t know what you find interesting.

Well, if you don’t know your interests, and given that you cannot create interest in something, you have to choose a different approach: you have to find your interests. And the only way to find them, is by engaging in all sorts of activities, so that by doing these activities you can find out what you do (and what you don’t) find interesting. You cannot sit down on a chair, thinking deeply (‘soul-searching’) about what you like to do. This only works if you already know what you find interesting; not if you still have to discover that.

Hence, to those of you that are sitting at home, not knowing what to do with their lives; not knowing what kind of job to pursue, I would say the following: get out there, and find what you are interested in. For interest cannot be created. It can only be discovered.

But what do you think?

Read The Life of a Twenty-Something to see why so many people in their twenties don’t know what to do with their lives

The Human Walking Face and The Absurd

The human “walking face” is a true joy to watch. That look as if everyone walking on the street is – at the same point in time – trying to come to grips with Einstein’s theory of relativity, but that, somehow, it won’t really click. All looking serious and angry, as if everyone is walking away from a fight with their spouse. As I said: a true joy to watch. And you know what I enjoy to do at those moments? At those numerous instances at which people look like they’re having an extremely hard time? At those moments I feel a strong urge to laugh.

At those moments I just like to express my happiness with the “walking faces” by bursting into a well-meant, wholehearted laughter. It doesn’t have to be very loud; just loud enough for yourself to realize that you’re laughing. And although this laughing might be feel “forced” or “fake” at the start; it while gradually flow into a sense of true laughter; a true sense of joy. And it is at that point in time that you’ve come to appreciate the beauty of the Absurd.

People are serious. And they should be, right? Live isn’t easy: you have to make money, you have to take care of your children and you have to act “responsibly”. If you don’t do any of these, there must definitely be something wrong with you. The road to survival is paved with puddles of duty and obligations; either socially conditioned or legally enforced. This is “the level of the crowd”. The level in which we live our “auto-pilot lives”; the level in which we move, speak and breathe. The level in which we’re prepared to do anything in order just to stay alive.

But there’s another level, a higher level, called “the level of reflection”. This is the level of relativity, of putting your issues into perspective: the level in which you think to yourself, “The people in Africa don’t even have food and I’m complaining about my goddamn wireless internet…what kind of sad person am I?” The level of reflection is a happy place to be at. It lessens your load, it makes you sorrows evaporate…partially. Because the level of reflection is – although higher than the level of the crowd – still part of the overarching “crowd-like mind”. The mind that is concerned with “living my life” and doing this through the inescapable and suffocating first-person perspective that I call “my personality”. Problems are still problems, only less significant than they were in the level of the crowd. You’re still hungry, but not as hungry as you were before.

But then – Bam! – Walhalla opens and “the level of the Absurd” shines its light on you. You become overwhelmed by feelings of randomness, ignorance and purposelessness. And you know what? You love it. It is in this level that all of your problems disappear, that the vortex to the world of indifference has opened. And when you finally decide to take the step into the Absurd, you feel that all the sense of “it’s all relative” – that you felt in the level of reflection – vanishes. You come to see that nothing is relative, since relativity implies value and value doesn’t exist. Nothing. Nowhere. “But”, a little voice from the level of the crowd might tell you, “people die in Africa every day. And your shitty wireless internet is still broken.” And your Absurd mind knows this, but it sees just right through all of these “issues” and into the truth: the truth that both issues are just as terrible as they are pleasant. People die every day and wireless internet breaks down every day. And you know why it happens? It happens because it happens.

Thank you for your visit in the level of the Absurd. I hope you enjoyed it.

What do you think?

The Thin Line between Disgust and Envy

‘That guy is such a pathetic little creature. Always whining about his “Baby, baby, baby oooh”. It makes me sick.’ I guess you know who I am talking about? That’s right: mister J.B. a.k.a. Justin Bieber. One part of the human species loves him (primarily the young and female part) while the other part wouldn’t mind seeing him quit the music business. But why is that we ‘just happen’ to dislike some people? Is it pure and utter disgust, or is there a sense of envy luring around the corner? Do we secretly wish that we were Justin Bieber? And is our sense of disgust in fact nothing more than a mask disguising our true feelings of insecurity?

Envy is best defined as ‘a resentful emotion that occurs when a person lacks another’s (perceived) superior quality, achievement or possession and wishes that the other lacked it.’ What we can infer from this definition is that those who envy others find themselves to be less than others: either because (1) they are insecure about themselves or (2) they’ve got a “deluded” (read: too positive) image of themselves. (1) because “wishing that the other lacked it” – as stated in the definition of envy – comes forth from a feeling of relative insignificance, a feeling of you being relatively little compared to the person you envy, a feeling of you being overlooked because of the alleged perfection of the other person. In other words: you are not at peace with your own capabilities and therefore wish that the capabilities of those better than you will tumble down, thereby making you a relatively better person. Note word “relatively” here, it’s important.

What about (2)? Well, if you believe that you are just as good as – let’s say – Justin Bieber, then you will envy Justin Bieber for being the big star that he is while you are still sitting there in front of your webcam waiting for Jay-Z to give you a call. If you find yourself to be amazing, it doesn’t seem fair that someone else is being appreciated and you are not: after all, you are just as good, right? So you should be appreciated just as much, right? It is this perceived unfairness that makes you envy those who “just happened” to be more lucky than you: delusion –> inadequate comparisons –> feelings of unfairness –> envy.

So, what’s the moral of this story? The moral is to stop hating those who are better than ourselves, to accept our position within society and try to change ourselves instead of trying to destroy others, because the latter merely increases our relative value. I say: fuck relative value. Go for absolute, status-independent value. If you find that you deserve more, if you find that “those idiots becoming famous” are shit, then you should work on yourself: blow them away by your superiority instead of trying to whine them down. If you can, then show it.

But what do you think?

P.S. I am not a fan of Justin Bieber’s music. I don’t know him as a person so I can’t judge him to be a “little self-centered prick” or anything of that sort.

Why Our Lives Would Improve if We’d Die at Age 40

In The Middle Ages the average life expectancy at birth was 35. And even in the 20th century – so not even 100 years ago – the life expectancy at birth was as little as 31. But why I am talking about life expectancy ‘at birth’? Isn’t that obvious? Life, after all, always starts at birth, doesn’t it? That’s true, but in The Middle Ages about 1/3 of the children died before the age of 5, so not taking these first years into consideration could significantly change the numbers. But still: even when excluding this 1/3 of the children from the calculations, it seems save to say that in the (not so distant) past people died much younger than we do nowadays – today, the (world) average life expectancy is 67,2 years.

Now: imagine you are born in The Middle Ages. Imagine that you would survive your childhood, and wouldn’t be killed immediately by the plague or any other kind of nasty disease. Imagine that you experience everyone – including your mother, father and uncles – die when you are, let’s say, 16. Given that you would know that you are about to die pretty young, how would you live your life? And in particular: what would you do different compared to what you are doing today (in the 21th century)?

Maybe, after thinking about this question for a while, you will come to following conclusion: it might have been much better if we wouldn’t become as old as we do. If we – just like those people in The Middle Ages – would die in our thirties. Wouldn’t we live a much more honest life then? ‘Honest’ in the sense that we would stay true to what we really want? Or would you still start studying Law although you don’t really want to? Would you still quit your aspirations in the music business because ‘It’s so hard to make a decent living out of it’?  Would you keep being insecure and hope that someday – before your 35th – you can finally start living your life on your terms?

And there are other advantages of dying younger. No more need to pay for the old and sick people. No more need to increase governmental health expenditures. No more need to listen to those grumpy old people complaining about ‘the good old days’, and how those times will never come back. No, we would only have people who are young by heart (and body). People who are naive enough to believe that they can change the world. And people who know that, if they want to change the world, they should start doing so now and not wait until they die or until their dreams are killed by dogma. Sounds like utopia, doesn’t it?

But we should make sure that not everyone dies young. If we all died before the age of 30 we would never accumulate the scientific knowledge our society needs to prosper. No-one would be able to develop into a PhD-mind, which is required in order to come up with the next new gasoline. And dying in your early thirties might make your life more depressing than valuable: realizing in your twenties that you’ve only got five more years to live doesn’t necessarily make you live a more honest life. The only benefit might be that the alcohol business would flourish. So let’s extend the preferred life expectancy to – let’s say – the milestone of 40. That is: let’s make 40 the new 80.

Making sure that everyone dies at age 40 would prevent people from chasing status instead of following their hearts. After all, you don’t have time to climb the ladder of success when your time is short. By the time you are about to reach the top, your time is up, and you have missed that step that will make you the king of the crowd.

So maybe we should make a deal with the government. Maybe they should put some narcotics in the drinking water of people celebrating their 40th birthday. Sinister? Maybe. Twisted? Maybe. But I hope you can see through the gore and into the core of this message.

What do you think?

A Short Reminder of the Shortness of Life

Because if you wait too long, it's game over

Because if you wait too long, it’s game over

The average person wanders around 28.000 days on this beloved earth of ours before (possibly) going to some place else. So the question is: how close to this number are you? Are you in the second half of your 28.000, or did you just pass a quarter of it? If you are in your early twenties – like myself – you are likely to be a couple of hundred days short of reaching the ‘amazing’ milestone of 10.000 days. But that’s quite close to the 28.000 already, right? It’s not like we just started. And if I would ask you to look back upon those thousands of days that you can call ‘my life‘, then what is it that you truly remember about them? And more importantly: what is it that you want to remember about – let’s say – the upcoming 10.000 days? That’s the truly interesting question, because this question – in contrast the former – doesn’t have a definite answer yet: it’s yours to fill in.

Let’s take a look at how our lives have been up till now, shall we? Let’s start with the first 1.200 days. Well, these are just one big blur: so let’s skip this part of our journey and move on. What about the next – let’s say – 3.500 days of our lives? These are likely to be filled with all sorts of happy memories, right? This is the period of your life about which – looking back – you’re not sure whether it all actually happened, because part of it could have been a dream.

Now we have come to the period between the age of 3.500 and 6.500 days old. This is likely to be the period in which you have experienced your personal ‘traumas’; those negative experiences you have tried – or are still trying – to eliminate in the subsequent part(s) of your life. Because think about it: most of the insecurities people have appear to have come about within this period of their lives. Ideas such that they are not smart enough, that they are ugly, that they don’t have any friends etc.

But that’s the past: let’s look at the future! After all, we – or at least I – hope to have another 20.000 days ahead of me. But is that really true? Do people in their early twenties truly still have 20.000 days of living ahead of them? The number of days that we are fully alive – in the most vital sense of the word – is likely to be less, right? That is: in the last five years or so of our lives, we are likely to be not so happy anymore. We will get ill, we will see our friends dying and we will come to realize that our own finishing line is getting closer and closer. That means that – reduced for inflation – the number of real days of living still ahead of us lies around 18.000.

But let’s be honest: from our mid-forties to our mid-sixties, we are really just continuing whatever kind of life we started before, right? And what is life when you are not creating anymore, when you are not truly struggling with what to do with your life anymore, when you have come to terms with the monotonous life you are living? Then you are just dead, right? You are nothing but a walking zombie. And what about the age between 35 and 45? Those aren’t very exciting years either, are they? I mean: do you think that you can still meet your future partner after you have passed the age of 35? Or become a parent for that matter? Nah, don’t think so. So those years don’t really count either.

So: what do we have left? We have restricted our ‘true lives’ to the period of between approximately the age of 20 and 25. That is the age in which we truly decide what to do with our lives. The remainder of our lives is just a tasteless sequel. But wait: 20-25? That’s how old I am! Shit: I better start doing something!

Let me ask you: what is wrong with the line of reasoning as pictured above? Let me give you a hint: it is everything except for the last sentence. After all: is it really true that we will be unable to find a partner after we have reached the age of 35? And is it really true that we cannot – in any fundamental sense – change our lives anymore after we have reached the age of 25? And who says we will live for 28.000 days? It is just an average. We might reach the 35.000 or we might die tomorrow. That is for the biggest part completely beyond our control.

So, and here comes the moral of the story, instead of making the limiting and paralyzing projections about life as the figure in this story did, maybe we should just start doing what we believe we should be doing right now. No long-term planning, no thinking about what our lives might be like when we’re re 40; just doing what we find interesting and worthwhile to do right now. Because: how can you plan your life if you don’t know how long you’ve got to plan for?

But what do you think?