It is usually said that life is absurd. Even so, it is not very clear what we actually mean by that. What exactly makes life absurd and why do we worry from the fact that if in any case, life is absurd? Maybe life being absurd is in fact a good thing. This is what Thomas Nagel; a distinguished American philosopher argues in a paper on the topic. His article on human existence, consciousness and mystics was published in 1971.
Nagel questions why occasionally people perceive life as absurd and claiming that nothing we do now will matter in the far future. But Nagel clearly points out the aftermath of this is that nothing in the future to come really matters now. Nagel states that specifically, what we are doing now in the future years to come will not matter anymore. Nevertheless, if what we did now does matter in future years to come, it does not stop what we do today from being absurd. If one wishes something to matter in the distant future it must start mattering today. Therefore, the real question is whether things matter now. No plead to the far future seem to assist answer that particular question. For Nagel, the difference between the value we put on our lives subjectively, and how they seem unnecessary objectively, is the requisite of the absurdity of our lives.
The concept of absurd is related with the French philosopher Albert Camus. Nagel refers to him as being too romantic and self-pitying. Rather than happily welcoming the ironic indifference that the absurd can and should initiate, Camus suggests one to respond with opposition by “shaking a fist to the world”. For Camus the absurd also depends on a discrepancy but unlike Nagel it is not based on internal and external views. His theory is founded between human hopes and dreams, and the disinterest and lack of interest of the universe. The idea of shaking one’s fist shows will not to accept the lack of interest with which the universe portrays and to withstand this indifference by not adding more to it. Camus suggests that we act accordingly and in turn build a different universe, one that cares.
Life has no purposed meaning and therefore there should be no cause to think we can succeed in attempting to find one. One should respond to life with no resistance or desperation but with a smile. It may not be all meaningful and joyful as hoped for but this does not give any cause for sadness.
