LIVING MINDFULLY IS THE ANSWER TO THE ABSURD

‘If sub specie aeternitatis there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that doesn't matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.’
Thomas Nagel.

Life is absurd---and I will hear nothing to the contrary.

The Christian, as well as others with religious faith of one kind or another, will tell you that life, although at times unfair or seemingly unfair, is ultimately just and meaningful because, so they assert, there is a Supreme Being in charge who will, so it goes, ensure that all things are ‘squared up’ in the fulness of time. Thus, it is said that those who appear to have suffered unfairly in this lifetime will be compensated in the supposed life-to-come, and those who appear to get away with their wrongdoings in this life will be punished in the life-to-come.

Well, that is a nice myth, and quite comforting to some. I must say that I derived some comfort from it for many years. I no longer do. The myth ‘died’ on me not so much when I came to the view that there were not only no good reasons for believing in the existence of an all-powerful and all-loving God but also good reasons for not believing in the existence of such a Being. No, the myth really died on me when I saw, in all its horror, the presence everywhere of what is known as gratuitous evil and suffering. Evil or suffering is gratuitous (that is, pointless or unnecessary) if, in the view of reasonable persons, the world would be improved by its absence and when no greater good can result from its existence as opposed to non-existence. True, some people do appear to be ennobled by suffering but I hardly think that makes the suffering right or necessary. You see, all too often too high a price is paid for the experience, and all too often the experience happens at the terrible expense of the innocent, the helpless and the powerless such as children or mere bystanders.

Actually, it is virtually impossible to provide a totally satisfactory definition of gratuitous evil and suffering. Many Christian theologians seize upon that in an attempt to show that there really is no such thing as gratuitous evil and suffering. They will stop at nothing to avoid blaming or otherwise implicating God for or as respects the existence of evil and suffering of whatever kind. As I see it, the difficulties encountered by reasonable persons only serve to highlight the absurdity and irrationality of the phenomenon --- as well as its terribleness and unacceptability.

Here’s just one example of the phenomenon of gratuitous evil and suffering. I could give you many. A cousin of mine died at the age of ten from incurable brain cancer. That is as good an example of gratuitous evil and suffering as any. What did my cousin do to ‘deserve’ that? Now, I know that question is perhaps not the ‘right’ one to ask, and maybe not even a ‘good’ question to ask. For starters, the question implies that disease or suffering is the result of wrongoing on the part of the sufferer. However, the very fact that we ask such a question, as most if not all of us will do at some point or other in our lives, points to the very existence of ‘the absurd.’ We ask the question---but we get no satisfactory answer at all. None whatsoever. No 'voice' answers back. Not even the voice of reason. There is just a huge void before us. (The Christian theologian's 'answer', namely, that God suffers in and with His creation, is far from satisfying. That may satisfy some but, I suspect, not most people.)

The philosophy of absurdism, together with its first cousin existentialism, is closely associated with the writings of the French philosopher and novelist Albert Camus [pictured right]. His writings have played an important part in the development of my own philosophy of life. Camus wrote that, on the one hand, we have this insatiable yearning for life to make sense, that is, have purpose and meaning, yet on the other hand we find, if we are rigorously honest with ourselves, that life does not have any innate or intrinsic purpose or meaning. ‘The absurd,’ wrote Camus, ‘is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.’

We must be careful here. The human being is not absurd, nor is life itself absurd if we see it as it really is---the natural and inevitable outworking of a sometimes orderly but at other times quite disorderly and even chaotic interplay of forces and events most of which are outside our conscious or personal control. Life is what it is. Terrible though it is, children dying of brain or bone cancer is precisely what one would expect to find in a world that has no innate or intrinsic meaning or purpose. However, when we place our desire for meaning and purpose and all our other hopes and expectations alongside this world which is totally oblivious to all our desires and even to our very existence, well, that’s when we get the absurd. Says Camus, ‘The absurd is not in man or in the world but in their presence together … it is the bond uniting them.’

Camus’ answer to the existence of the absurd is this---rebellion … revolt. Yes, we must rebel, even revolt, against the absurd. That will not make the absurd go away but we must live as if there were meaning in our every act, thought and word. Yes, we will ultimately die and in a very real sense all that we did will come to naught, but we can invest life with a certain meaning and purpose if we live fully, are true to ourselves, and commit ourselves to some noble cause beyond ourselves. ‘One must imagine Sisyphus happy,’ Camus wrote in his philosophical essay The Myth of Sisyphus. (Sisyphus, a figure of Greek mythology, was condemned to an eternity of rolling a boulder uphill, only to have to watch it roll back down again. Camus compared what he saw as the absurdity of our lives here on earth with the fate of Sisyphus.) We must open ourselves to ‘the gentle indifference of the world’ (Camus' words) and be able to say, as did Meursault, the anti-hero in Camus' great philosophical novel The Stranger, near the very end of his life, ‘I felt that I had been happy and that I was happy again.’

We do have choices in life. Perhaps they are not ‘real’ choices, for I think there is much to be said for the view that the choices that we make are necessarily determined by matters (eg our genes) that are beyond our personal or conscious control. Even our seemingly 'free' choices are largely determined by our temperament, our likes and dislikes, and the choices we've made previously. Be that as it may, we can still choose to be happy---no matter what. We can still choose to live mindfully. And we can still choose to make every moment of our finite existence here on earth count.

Yes, living mindfully, one moment at a time, is the 'answer'---in the sense of being the most appropriate response in all the circumstances---to the existence of the absurd. No, mindfulness cannot make the absurd disappear. Nothing can accomplish that feat. However, living mindfully can invest every moment of our wakeful and at times fitful existence with purpose and meaning. The purpose and meaning is in the doing, that is, in the living of our days … mindfully.

The great Persian philosopher, astronomer and poet Omar Khayyám wrote, ‘Be happy for this moment. This moment is your life.’ How true that is! This present moment, which as I write those words has become the next moment and the one after that, is all that we have. Our life here on earth is a succession of life-moments each one of which is an instant of time in which we live, move and have our being. The choice which is yours and mine is this---will we choose to live each life-moment mindfully or mindlessly?

Rebel against the absurd. Revolt. Choose to be happy. Act as if your every act, thought and word had meaning and purpose. Embrace the delicious irony that in the overall scheme of things nothing truly matters at all in the sense of having any eternal lasting significance. But I urge you to do more---live nobly and, above all, mindfully … in the face of an otherwise meaningless and indifferent world.

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Ever since studying French in high school some 45 or more years ago I have loved the works of Albert Camus [pictured left] and, in particular, his novel L’Étranger (The Stranger/The Outsider).

There is a philosophical tension in Camus’ philosophy of life. On the one hand, life is absurd, irrational, futile, and manifestly unjust, but on the other hand we are rational beings—at least in potentiality—and therefore not absurd. Additionally, it is possible for us to be happy even in a world of tragedy, irrationality, manifest injustice, and suffering.

There is also a creative tension, both in Camus’ works and in life itself, between oppression, bondage and oblivion on the one hand and freedom and joy on the other. Each of us will die, and death is a process which begins the very moment that we are born. Still, we are ultimately free, and ever the more so if, paradoxically, we learn to live without hope. Yes, we must abandon hope but yet not despair.

The ‘hero’ of the book, Meursault, is condemned to death. He eventually comes to terms with his impending and inevitable death by realizing that life, indeed the entire universe, is benignly indifferent to our fate. Toward the end of the novel, just a short time before he is due to be executed, and after he has put that pesky priest in his place, Meursault soberly reflects ...

I’d passed my life in a certain way, and I might have passed it in a different way, if I’d felt like it. I’d acted thus, and I hadn’t acted otherwise; I hadn’t done x, whereas I had done y or z. And what did that mean? That, all the time, I’d been waiting for this present moment, for that dawn, tomorrow’s or another day’s, which was to justify me. Nothing, nothing had the least importance and I knew quite well why.

Now, do you have regrets about the past, perhaps about certain acts or omissions on your part? Well, let the past stay in the past. So, you could have lived that way, or this way, but what does it matter? You are here now … and that’s all that truly matters.

Do you have certain hopes and expectations for the future? What if those hopes and expectations are dashed and never fulfilled, which could well happen? Face it. You are here now … and that’s all that truly matters.

You are … here … now. Now is the only moment you truly have. Now is the portal through which we experience the present moment, indeed every moment … but only one moment at a time.

Do we have free will, or is everything a matter of fate and destiny? Or are both ideas true? Having studied philosophy deeply for many decades, I say this---we really don’t know. Those who think it is one or the other or both are really making what is only an assumption. The truth is, none of us knows for sure whether determinism is true or free will is true. But one thing we do know is this---life is short and death is inevitable and invincible.  In the words of Omar Khayyám:

Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise!
One thing at least is certain — This Life flies;
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies;
The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.

In other words, every thing passes, withers, and dies. And that includes us. Despite what some would have you believe, we cannot change that destiny, but we can, I assert, still choose how we will spend the present moment, and each and every one of the present moments between now and death. Yes, it is in the present moment that you are 'justified'.

So, here you are … right here … in this present moment of the eternal now. Why not live mindfully---that is, in and with full and choiceless awareness and appreciation of the present moment … and for the present moment ... and the one after that … and the one after that … and the one after that ... until you come to that day when all moments cease and you are engulfed by the fulness of the enormity of eternity.

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MINDFULNESS AND MONSIEUR HULOT

One of my all-time favourite films is The Vacances de Monsieur Hulot (Mr Hulot’s Holiday).

Let’s face it, the French filmmaker and actor Jacques Tati [pictured left] was a genius---and thanks to his immortalization on film, he is still is.

Every time I see this delightful black-and-white film, and I pull out and watch my DVD copy of the film at least once each year, I experience ‘not a comedy of hilarity but a comedy of memory, nostalgia, fondness and good cheer.’ Those words come from the eminent American film historian and critic Roger Ebert, whose review of the film is well worth reading. And these words of his also resonate with me:

When I saw the film a second time, the wonderful thing was, it was like returning to the hotel. It wasn't like I was seeing the film again; it was like I was recognizing the people from last year. There's the old couple again (good, they made it through another year). The waiter (where does he work in the winter?). And the blond girl (still no man in her life; maybe this is the summer that . . .).

The author photographed on La Plage de Monsieur Hulot in July 2016

They say nostalgia ‘ain’t what it used to be.’ Well, watch The Vacances de Monsieur Hulot. Then watch it again in, say, a year’s time. Then watch it again. The film’s ability to invoke and continually re-invoke nostalgia for a time and an era long gone, a time and era the majority of us never experienced, is almost unbelievable. Such is the greatness of film that the otherwise ephemeral incidents and occurrences depicted in the film are frozen in time and space forever---or at least for so long as there is a print in one form or another of the film ... or for so long as there is someone living who can remember at least one delicious frame of the film.

Except for some indoor scenes (for example, those set in the hotel's restaurant), The Vacances de Monsieur Hulot was filmed on location in the small, delightful coastal resort town of Saint-Marc-sur-Mer, on the edge of the industrial port of Saint-Nazaire. The seaside Hôtel de la Plage, which appeared as the holiday residence of Mr Hulot, still exists. The beach scenes were shot on Saint-Marc's beach, which is now known as La Plage de M. Hulot (‘Mr Hulot's Beach’). I've read that the tennis match took place in the garden of the nearby Château de Saint-Marc. Some say the tennis court has gone. However, the little cemetery into which Mr Hulot accidentally drove mid-funeral is still there, albeit now right next to a gymnasium. (For those who are interested, here are some 'then and now' photos.)

The entire film--like all of Tati's films---is nothing but a series of largely disconnected incidents and occurrences. One reviewer describes the film as 'a seemless succession of gently mocking studies of human absurdity.' So true. Part of the genius of Tati was his wonderful ability to preserve and capture on film the minutiae of the ordinary and everyday, in particular, the sights and sounds of the moment. Who, having once seen the film, could ever forget the ‘thwanking’ sound made by the door in the hotel dining room? Ebert writes:

Does it annoy Hulot, who has been placed in the Lonely Guy table near to it? Probably, but it is in the nature of the door to thwank, and we sense that it has thwanked for a generation, and will thwank until the day the little clapboard hotel is torn down to put up a beachfront gargantoplex.

Then there's that pipsqueak sound of Mr Hulot's car horn ... and the sound of the hotel bell being rung for lunch ... and the noise of the car tyre going flat, with a mourner at the funeral thinking it's the sound of himself farting. I could go on. Yes, Tati’s attention to detail was quite extraordinary. Now, if mindfulness is the practice of bare attention to, and choicless awareness, of the action of the present moment, from one moment to the next, then Tati, and the several films he made, are masterpieces of mindfulness. Tati and his alter ego M. Hulot look and see. They examine. They are aware---choicelessly so. As Ebert writes, ‘There is an almost spiritual acceptance in [Hulot’s] behavior; nothing goes as planned, but nothing surprises him.’ Things come and go, things happen---most especially to Hulot himself---and all is noticed and observed. No judgment is passed by either Hulot or Tati himself. Things speak for themselves. Anything can happen, and does happen. Most that happens is inconsequential to say the least. Nothing matters much at all, but ... well ... c’est la vie. Tati's comedy, for the most part, is delicate, good-natured, and carefully understated. He never sought the belly laugh but rather the wry smile of inner satisfaction and, most especially, the look and feel of self-knowing recognition. Ah, la vie est comme ça! Yet there is a certain 'bite' to the proceedings as Tati reveals to the world the eccentricities of various aspects of French middle-class life. (Not that most of it doesn't also hold up for the rest of us.)

The French, perhaps more than any other people, understand the truth of that distinctly Gallic epigram, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose ('the more things change, the more they stay the same'). They also know that although life is 'absurd,' that is, has no intrinsic meaning, the essence and joy of life is to be found in the charming inconsequentiality of the ordinary ephemeral occurrences of each moment of each day. Ah, c'est magnifique, ça! Mr Hulot's car backfires ... on several inopportune occasions. The doors of the bus close on a person's suitcase. A dog lies on its side in the middle of the road, sunbaking. Mr Hulot leaves muddy footprints in the foyer of the hotel. Later he fashions a hat from a newspaper. Another man is reading a newspaper. A naughty young boy on the beach uses the sun and a magnifying glass to burn a hole in the canvas of a beach tent. A young Marxist bores a pretty young lady. An middle-aged to elderly woman picks up seashells, one after the other, and hands them to her husband who looks contemptuously at each of them in turn before quickly throwing them away. Another man’s moustache blows upward in the draft. A cute little toddler tumbles, ice-cream first, into the sand. A man is constantly trying to tune a radio ... forever without much success. All si terriblement ordinaire, even absurd. Yet all si terriblement important, for such is life.

Mr Hulot throws himself into the content of the moment with an enthusiasm and an innocence that are almost childlike, even if it is to the annoyance of others of whom he is largely oblivious. He fails more often than he succeeds in whatever he does. Nothing ever seems to work out quite like it ‘should,’ except that there are no ‘shoulds’ in his world---nor ours for that matter---because everything is equally important and equally unimportant as every other thing. Everything is ordinary, and yet everything is also extraordinary. Everything matters because whatever is is what is, and there's nothing else. Yet nothing matters much at all, because all things change and all things will pass away. Only life---whatever ‘it’ may be---remains, for life is nothing other than living things living out their livingness from one moment to the next. Forms, including us, come and go ever so quickly. Life proceeds relentlessly onwards---mercilessly at best.

Yes, the joy of life is to be found in the minutiae of the ordinary and everyday. Don’t look for any deeper meaning or purpose. If you do, you will cease to notice and enjoy those little, ever-so-ephemeral little occurrences and moments of life that collectively constitute our brief time on this planet. The set of instructions at the opening of the film says as much:

Mr. Hulot is off for a week by the sea. Take a seat behind his camera, and you can spend it with him. Don't look for a plot, for a holiday is meant purely for fun, and if you look for it, you will find more fun in ordinary life than in fiction. So relax and enjoy yourselves. See how many people you can recognise. You might even recognise yourself.

Good advice. Don’t look for a plot in life, for life is meant purely for fun. Look for the extraordinary among the ordinary things of so-called ‘ordinary life’. And what is ‘fiction’? Well, fiction is someone’s version of what is. Fiction is interpolated and extrapolated meaning where there otherwise is no meaning. My simple advice to you is---forget the 'shoulds,' the 'oughts,' and the 'whys,' instead look and see, and observe and examine, and most of all enjoy, what actually is ... from one moment to the next. La vie est dans la salle. Angels, if there are any, can do no better.

Here's the film's trailer---well, one of them:

Now, go watch Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot in its entirety. And you might even recognise yourself.

Postscript (1). I'm off to Saint-Marc-sur-Mer next week, and I'll be staying at, yes, the above mentioned Hôtel de la Plage. I will let you know what it's like---in the not-too-distant future. A bientôt. IEJ. November 12, 2014.

Postscript (2). I had a wonderful time in Saint-Marc-sur-Mer [see my various photos below, the bottom one showing the site of the former tennis court]. The town is as charming as ever. Most of the significant buildings that were there in 1951, when the exterior scenes of Les Vacances de Monsieur Hulot were filmed there, remain to this day. The hotel has been added onto, and revovated extensively, in the ensuing years but it retains much of its original quaintness and Gallic charm. I will be back. IEJ. November 29, 2014.

Postscript (3). I returned to Saint-Marc-sur-Mer, this time with my wife, in July 2016, and found the place just as wonderful as I did in 2014. May it ever be so. IEJ. July 22, 2016.

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