Why Everything Is Pointless (And Why It's Okay)

 “I know too much about life to have any optimism about relationships. I know that if you smile at someone, and they smile back, you’ve just decided something horrible is going to happen. You might have a nice first couple of dates, but then she’ll stop calling you back and that’ll feel horrible. Or you’ll date for a long time and then she’ll cheat on you with one of your friends, or you will with one of hers, and that’ll feel horrible. Or you’ll get married and it won’t work out, you’ll get divorced, split your friends and money, and that’s horrible. Or you’ll meet the perfect person who you’ll love infinitely, and you even argue well and grow together, and you have children, and then you get old together and then she’s going to die. That’s the best-case scenario.”  

That was a, might I say quite censored, quote from the stand-up comedian Louis C.K., who’s well-known for his dark humor that presents concepts that provide horrific insight about the way the world works and how it is. He’s achieved fame and fortune by practicing absurdism in his jokes; he makes light out of the most controversial of topics, and people seem to really appreciate how he likes to embrace a few god-forsaken truths. 

Absurdism is an important philosophy for everyone to understand, that is, in order to achieve peace in the terrors of today's world. The truth is that life is full of random, absurd events, and in order to live comfortably we must embrace life’s absurdities. 

The Animal Kingdom Has No True Rules. 

 People must understand that the only thing that separates humanity from other animal species was our ability to evolve enough where savage survival was off our everyday to-do list and was replaced by superficial issues like money and people liking us. The truth is, when humans evolved as a species, we invented social standards. No one told us to, we just did. To truly understand absurdism, we must trace back to our roots and truly understand that humanity is still a part of the savage animal kingdom. Just like humans, animals commit absurdities everyday; except animals don’t think about it as much as we do. In fact, there are trillions of different species that participate in absurd activities everyday.

For instance, donkeys love to fornicate with the same gender. Clownfish can undergo sex change and turn from male to female, or vice-versa. Female praying mantises eat their partners after mating.  That’s homosexuality, transgender-ism, murder, cannibalism, and technically divorce beyond the human race. The only thing that these animals don’t seem to be having, is intense controversial discussion at 7 AM over coffee on Channel 1 News. If a clownfish like Nemo can switch genders, why can’t Caitlyn Jenner?

Imagine being a Caterpillar. You're life purpose is to eat leaves, then you just freeze into a statue for a month. If you're lucky enough to avoid getting swept away by weather or being smashed apart by human 4 year old's, then you'll get to be a free butterfly. For 14 days. Then you die. Sea turtle hatching's average 90% hatching success, but only 1% survival rate. The other 99%  of the ones that hatched, get torn apart and eaten whole by birds before even meeting their mom.   When bee's orgasm, their testicles explode. 

 The truth is it doesn’t matter; morality is just a social construct within a species. People seem to resort to religion as the pinnacle of morality. Yet, if what we preach is true, then technically wouldn’t most animals go to hell? Is heaven only reserved to humans who have access to a higher conscious? Was heaven created when humans evolved to an intelligence level that can define morality? I’m not advocating atheism, nor am I discrediting any type of higher belief. My point is that we must understand that the universe did not create morality, we did. 

 Whenever something terrible happens we blame God, when really he probably had nothing to do with it. We can’t blame the universe for being random. On the other hand, it can not be denied that morality is important, and that it’s what keeps all species alive. Usually, it seems to be ubiquitously agreed in most animal species that cooperation is key to prosper. 

 Yet, negative emotions exists in every species, and it makes immorality unavoidable in all animals, so they kill, rape, and conquer. The thing is, animals can’t perceive morality. Just because we can, doesn’t make it a fixed rule. Our false sense of absolute moral order in the world makes every terrible thing so much more absurd.

Time & Space Is Just An Illusion

  Moreover, because of the illusion of morality, humanity over reacts negatively to immoral, absurd events. People are emotional and flustered, because they realize they can’t control anything outside of themselves. This is definitely related to Albert Einstein's concept of relativity, where there is an absence of standards of the absolute. Everything we perceive is biased due to our feelings on the subject. 

We are mad, because we can't control time. Time can be unfairly limited or tortuously long; due to the concept of time going faster when you’re happy and slower when you’re upset. Just as a lifespan can be too short, it can be too long. We invest our time in love and in work, but we don’t have enough time for both. We either waste time or spend too much time. Time is a truly absurd topic, because no matter what situation, there will be a way to find some type of dissatisfaction.

 At the same time, we are also mad, because space makes us feel insignificant. We are upset, because we are not omnipresent. We cannot do everything at once and we can’t be everyone at once. For some reason, people want to be important, but this is impossible due to the fact that we are minuscule compared to the universe. Everyone is well aware that everything we do may just be for nothing. Does this mean we exist for no reason then?

 Both space and time at some point in our lives will make us dissolve into this existential crisis that is what the meaning of life is. When this happens, the meaning of life becomes overwhelming, and people begin to grasp the concept of the meaningless of life. We realize us and all of our loved ones will die and be forgotten. Everything we do is for nothing. There is no point. People shake and quiver while staring at their hands, wondering this essential question: why?

  Then after these realizations, we become angry at the world. Not only are we angry at the unfair, immoral universe, but more than anything we are angry at other people. Isn’t that ironic? Humanity hates humanity. Humanity accuses humanity of being inhumane. We blame society, but we are society. Nobody can handle anybody's opinions that are even the tiniest bit substantially different from theirs, because they just invest so much emotion into the opinions they hold that they just can’t see past themselves, and every other side to the story other than theirs appears plain out wrong. Emotion clouds logic. 

Especially with technology giving us access to the terrible side of the world every single day such as stories of rape, murder, injustice, war, etc., people don’t seem to know what to do with themselves. There’s way too many subcategories of arguments to discuss, but in the end the reason why their all argued is because they are defying the social constructs we made up. At this point, our consciousness is so astonished at our existence, because the world refuses to show meaning. Our need for meaning seems ridiculous against the uncontrollable, illogical, absolute world.
 

Why It's Totally Okay 

  In order to live life to the fullest, we must embrace the absurd. Embracing the absurd means to accept the world for how it is and to achieve peace. Lately, pop culture has been incorporating a lot of absurd philosophy. Rick & Morty is a cartoon in particular that explores this concept to it’s fullest extent.

 In one episode called Rick Potion #9, Morty wants his grandfather, Rick, to create a love potion that Morty can use on his crush at school. Evidently, the potion went horribly wrong, which causes Rick to attempt an antidote where it turned the entire population of Earth into disgusting mantis-people mutants who want to eat Morty. Rick eventually comes to a realization that this situation is beyond fixing. 

Instead of making another antidote, Rick takes him and Morty to another dimension. In this reality, an alternate version of the Rick and Morty had discovered an antidote that has turned everyone back to normal, except the alternate versions of them had brutally died by explosion right after their antidote had solved everything. 

The two enter this dimension and end up having to bury their own corpses, slipping into the reality that originally was home to the alternate versions of them that had just died. While burying his own body, young Morty is frantic and terrified at the sight of his lifeless, disfigured corpse . He asks his grandfather, “But what about the reality we left behind?” Rick responds with a blunt statement, “The answer is: don’t think about it.”
 

This science-fictional series attracts millions of viewers with its deep philosophical analysis of absurdism. It embraces, in a very grotesque way, how humans exist in a world utterly indifferent to them. Taking our focus off cartoons and into the real world, we must realize that we cannot live our lives with grandiose expectations and fantasies. The truth is that the absurd does not happen on purpose; the absurd is the result of the mystery of our mute world. We cannot blame the world for being the world. Instead, we must embrace the world for what it is. What this means, is for one to be in harmony with everything.   

This is accepting misfortune, and dealing with the issue at hand with a logical mindset, rather than an emotional one. Whenever a problem arises, instead of retaliating in violence, tears, and anger, we must examine the situation as a whole and decide what steps it will take to achieve a resolution. This means having to compromise and work with other people, because we can’t always get everything we want. Humanity has to stop fighting and put up a white flag, surrender, and tell the world it has won. Even though it is fact that humans, along with every other living creatures, cannot control anything outside of themselves; it is also fact that they have the power to control themselves.  
In the end, that is really all you need. 

If you have the power to turn your eyeballs inwards and examine your soul, you’ll be surprised to find out that the ability to deal with life’s absurdities was inside you all along. Then when you revert your eyeballs outwards, you’ll be able to view the world through a lens you’ve never understood before. Embracing the absurd allows you to live a strong and happy life, that nevertheless leads to death.