[Kirism is a contemporary philosophy of life that I’ve developed over the last several decades. It is psychological, philosophical, and existential and takes into account human nature, the human predicament, our contemporary understanding of the world, and our pressing individual and species-wide challenges. I hope that you’ll enjoy learning more about it. In the first four posts of the series, we’ll look at the idea of absurd rebellion: what that is and why a Kirist adopts that attitude. This is the first of those four posts. To learn more about Kirism, please take a look at Lighting the Way, in which Kirism is introduced. To be in touch with me about Kirism, please drop me an email to [email protected].]
A Kirist is easier with absurdity than the next person. We accept the reality of absurdity, we do not deny its demoralizing power, and we wish that life was less absurd than it is. But above all, we exclaim, “I refuse to let absurdity rob me of the freedom I possess.”
There was a time, for the better part of a hundred and fifty years, when public and private conversations about absurdity flourished in a corner of human discourse. Everyday people were not discussing it but we were, you and I, usually privately.
Mostly privately, we looked at life, shook our heads, and said, “How absurd!” How absurd that we should be given consciousness of our own mortality and made to feel terrible. How absurd that we should be born doomed—and know it!
How absurd that the details of your birth should matter so much. How absurd that you might come into the world burdened by ordinary looks, tyrants for parents, stubby legs, and a dismal outlook. Who threw those miserable dice?
How absurd that virtue was not rewarded. How absurd that the self-proclaimed righteous were so devious and untruthful. How absurd that the rich got richer and the poor poorer. How absurd that there should be upper classes and lower classes.
So much looked absurd that whole movements grew up whose sole agenda was to point out the absurdity of this or that: the absurdity of employing a word like “truth,” the absurdity of valuing art, the absurdity of political action, and so on.
Then we stopped thinking about absurdity, talking about absurdity, or factoring it into our calculations about life. We simply concluded that life was a cheat, included absurdity in that evaluation, and dropped the concept like a hot potato.
We arrived at a point where it seemed absurd to continue chatting about absurdity. We still took absurdity as a bedrock feature of existence but it became a secret, unmentionable feature. We buried it and we sank further into despair.
We turned our back on the concept and tried to put it out of our mind, even as life grew more absurd. We swallowed hard, ran this way and that, kept very busy, and purchased antidepressants. But who were we fooling or kidding?
We had made a serious mistake, a grave miscalculation, by trying to turn our back on absurdity. Now it is time to face it again. Let us exclaim “How absurd!” as we look out at the human spectacle. Yes, that hurts, but we are obliged to be honest.
And it does hurt. It hurts because we know that it translates as, “Life is ridiculous,” “life isn’t fair,” “nothing really matters,” and so on. We may exclaim “How absurd!” with a bit of a laugh, as if we’ve amused ourselves, but that laugh is deeply bitter.
Now we must revisit those absurdities, as bitter as they make us feel, for the sake of understanding our real challenges and crafting our next steps. Here are a few of those absurdities, just a sampling, about as many as we need or can stomach.
I may be a person who values helping the less fortunate and I may also be a cynical person who wonders if the panhandler I’m passing is perhaps a professional beggar playing me. How absurd that I am both people! But I am.
I am the same person in the morning and in the afternoon. I possess the same values. But how those values play themselves out—what predominates, what comes forward, what “wins”—is so very different those few hours apart. How absurd!
You read an interview and are once again shocked to discover the extent to which powerful forces in society are mugging you and gagging you. You really should fight back, shouldn’t you? But how absurd to imagine fighting back! Fight back? Really?
Having read that demoralizing interview, you know in your heart that you should drop everything and fight. But isn’t that completely absurd? What difference could you possibly make? And there you sit, precisely as impotent as you feel.
But isn’t it likewise completely absurd to simply go about your business as if you hadn’t noticed? Here you are, working fifty hours a week at a terrible job so that you can pay the rent in an overpriced city, and they steal from you. And you do nothing?
And not only can’t you fight back, maybe you don’t really want to fight. Maybe all you want to do is write your psychological thriller set in 1920’s Paris. But what is the value in that? Who needs another story? How absurd to devote your life to that!
And maybe you value your loved one above all else? But what if he is about to engage in some terrible betrayal or some sordid deed? Should you still side with him, this love of your life, perhaps to your everlasting shame? How absurd!
Or say that you completely understand mass entertainment. All of that sedating, soothing, and sentimentalizing so as to seduce mesmerized viewers into forgetfulness. But your five-year-old really wants to see a certain Disney movie. How absurd!
Should you deny him that innocent pleasure? Should you have a conversation with him in which you quote Adorno that “Walt Disney is the most dangerous man in America”? Or do you let him watch that singing mermaid? What an absurd situation!
And, more absurd still, maybe you are an animator who would love to work on such movies! You see through them, you despise them, and you also love them and want to be a part of creating them. Really, could anything be more absurd?
If we had the stomach for it, we could continue with countless examples. Instead, let’s distill the essence: absurdity is with us, even as we try to deny it. And it is better to face it, whether bitterly or with ringing laughter, and then get on with living.
**
Lighting the Way: How Kirism Answers Life’s Toughest Questions
—
This Post is republished on Medium.
—
Photo credit: iStock
