Is life truly absurd?

Recently, as winter opens its shivering second act, I've been reflecting on the concept of "black and white", and how much grey, if any, lies between.

The Andrew Bovell play "Things I Know to be True" (I played Bob in a Off The Leash Theatre production in July) explores this very notion. “Is it black and white?” Bob asks his son after learning that he’d been skimming from his firm. 

I’ve come to believe that there is no black and white, only what each individual - and therefore the society this individual belongs to - attributes to it. And even then, it's probably a shade of grey. 

Human societies need structure. Its absence leads to all sorts of aberrations. As a result we construct a structure that is rooted in belief systems that have been carefully and judicially created. And the reason? So the few can control the many, and not because we all want to live in harmony.

Fyodor Dostoevsky came to believe that life is largely absurd and wrote about it. The French writer Albert Camus held similar views. Both had visceral experiences of the human condition during their lives and these found their expression in their novels and reflections.

Dictionary definitions of “absurd” include: 

1. Of, relating to, or manifesting the view that there is no order or meaning in human life or in the universe (American Heritage Dictionary)
2. Ridiculous or completely unreasonable (Cambridge Dictioary)
3. extremely silly; not logical or sensible (Oxford Dictionary)

The etymology of the word dates to the Latin absurdus which means “out of tune" or “inharmonious” and it appears to have first been used in English in the early-mid 1500s.

In my mind, this is revealing. It seems to suggest that what we believe might be "out of sync” with reality, or "out of tune", even "tuneless and lacking harmony”.

Note that I'm talking about what we believe, and not the natural world.

There is something to be said for this perspective. We need only look at the world we've created to see the lack of harmony. We may even be moved to call it all absurd. 

But it’s nothing to laugh at, despite its often humorous use.

The so-called “theatre of the absurd” genre of performance took this idea to its extremes, as in Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot. If you wait long enough, nothing will happen, no matter what you talk about or what you expect.

One could be forgiven for thinking that the world we inhabit has little meaning given the way humanity repeats its mistakes and doesn’t learn from its history. One could be forgiven for coming to the realisation that your life also has no meaning because nothing you do or say makes any difference to the gargantuan that is the over 8 billion sparks of human existence. One could definitely be forgiven for refusing to waste your energy on others, your environment, your job, your family and its untouchable past, and your future. After all, it’s all just our own perception and has no real foundation in fact or objective reality.

Wow! That’s pretty pessimistic, you might conclude. True. It could be interpreted that way. But, then again, we are the creators of our own reality. 

For me there is only one truth.

The present moment exists. Nothing else does.

If that's silly, illogical or out of sync, I'll gladly sit on a park bench and wait for Jesus, because that's just as absurd.