I know this post should and must be about Absurdism and shit. But how in the blue fuck have I never heard about the concept of Intermittent Reinforcement! Where have these two magical words been for the past 26 years of my life? Fucking life-changing concept that I believe everyone should most certainly be aware of (TLDR; random reward equals addictive tendencies.)
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Let's cut to the chase. Which reminds me, fun fact! The idiom "cut to the chase" actually has its origin in the film industry. Films dating back to the 1920s used to put chase scenes in the climax to make the film interesting. And when the exposition becomes a little too much in the film, directors would advise to "cut to the chase" scene so that the movie is more exciting. Ironically, I haven't cut to the chase did I?
I've been brimming to write, to the point that I started to frantically share too many Instagram reels around, which I figured was my hypothalamus's way of saying "WRITE for heaven's sake!" Time to come back to my writer's table.
Cracking knuckles? Check
A little head twist for some swag? Check
Obliterating ears with music (helps me with creativity for some reason)?
Find me where people are mourning, man (yeah)
'Cause death is around every corner (yeah)
When life isn't free for a person, dawg
Check.
I was a little reluctant to write this piece primarily because of how serious the topic is and how it can affect people. But I'm gonna still publish this. Please be advised to stop reading this if it's all too logical or getting heavy, or if you think it can affect you negatively.
Pre-requisites:-
Atheism will be assumed to be the accepted worldview than some dude that looks like a chess piece (scoffs, derivative humour. How original of you. Although in all seriousness J.C is my idol. No, no, not Jesus Christ. Julian Casablancas)
Existence of free will will be assumed to be "unknowable", although I have strong opinions on us not having one, for the scope of this topic its just "idk man".
An open mind to accept the joke about theism in the first pointer. If that triggered you, then maybe press [x] immediately.
Death is coming. We're all gonna die someday. Well I think everybody knows that, so why is this a prerequisite?
Universe is meaningless. Yup. We are just absolute randomness. No divine creation. No "you're destined to do this because of God...". None of it. Nope. We're just there, and this is one of those philosophical threads which will end with "that's just how it is bro". I digress.
Then what else?
This should be good I guess.
The above-mentioned 7 pointers are considered to be important axioms upon which I will be writing this piece. So it's absolutely important that those 7 pointers are crystal clear. If there are disagreements on any of these points, then
I want to start off with this quote I heard someone say
"I don't like to write, but I like to have written"
This quote felt really poignant to me primarily because the key meaning of this statement was too relatable for me. The essence of the quote is that I don't like to do something but I like the idea of doing it. There are so many things in life where this is applicable. I want to get good at reading more books, but I don't like the process of reading a lot of books. I want to live a good life, but I don't enjoy the process of living life. So so many of us (if not all) do not enjoy the process of life right now in this very moment of you reading this. So many disappointed neurons transmitting the signal ("This fucking sucks"). I was part of this gang, and I embarked on this journey of "Why is it all worth it? Or a better question would be why live if life is miserable and filled with suffering"
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Phew, that was deep. Take a deep breath. Just reading the sentence doesn't help! Take that DEEP BREATH RIGHT NOW. OK, good. Breath in, breath out. Let us zoom out a bit. We can see Earth as a small sphere. And one dude who's living off Sun's light for God knows how long. Zoom out a bit more. Now what do we see? Some glimmering lights. Now we've zoomed out enough to stress the fact that we're pretty much alone in this space that we've cooked up in mind. What does that mean you ask? It simply means, we are arguably the only (okay, this is still up for the jury to decide) ones out there with the ability to understand that we "might" be all alone and are able to come up with certain patterns and rules discerning this thing called Universe. We got this weird capability to be aware that we are aware due to some twisted play of evolution and entropy. With all things in mind, life is a pretty cool miracle. It will be a shame and disrespect to oneself if one doesn't "enjoy" or want to live in it. When we die we don't get to take our material possessions or even our consciousness; we die a death when we die. It's a whole bit of nothingness. If someone is trying to rationalise death as an okay reaction to suffering is pretty darn insane. Because let me bring down life to an equation.
Let's assume conscious experience ($C$) as a function of us ($x$) and time ($t$).
$$f(x, t) = C$$
So the possible solutions to $f(x, t)$ is :-
Happiness (Positive Integer)
Peace (Zero)
Suffering (Negative Integer)
If you strike yourself ($x$) off from this equation there's no You to apply this function to experience Peace (Zero) if that's what the intuition tells.
$$f(\text{null}, t) \neq \text{Peace} (0)$$
but
$$f(null, t) = Void (null)$$
You aren't escaping from misery, you deleted the variables of life. And to call that a solution to suffering is a logical paradox. You only solve the equation when you live it. At any given $t$ the output of $f(x, t)$ will be positive, negative, or zero. That's life. This is all I got man. In a null state you aren't relieved that pain is gone; you are just gone ($x = null$). You can't appreciate this absence if you are not there to witness it. That's the paradox.
Now that it's established that life's worth living, let's intellectualise suffering. Suffering feels shit ain't it? Yeah, nobody likes it. Great to hear that we all share similar feelings. Why is existence miserable half the time? That dates way back when this universe was born (Big Bang), it gives zero shits about you, your money, your status or anything for that matter. Universe got no sentience to come up with shit like "Oh my god, poor thing is having a hard time, let me transfer 1 million rupees to his bank account". Not happening. Universe is indifferent. Doesn't give a shit if you're rich/poor, theist/atheist, hero/villain. Universe just is. There's no internal meaning to anything Universe throws at us. Why? Well good luck finding an answer to that little piece of shit rabbit hole (let me save you some time and say, we will never know). Camus famously calls this the "Absurd". Our existence is a living Absurd. Life throws random things at you (maybe some things we can trace back with the help of causality) but there are certain things that just doesn't make sense. And the only way to live a life filled with richness is to (I'll borrow words from Camus again) Revolt against this Absurd. Life throws shit at you? Acknowledge the Absurd and Revolt against by living with it. Many people are afraid of this Absurd. So many that I can't count them with my set of natural numbers. We tend to twist the Absurd into easily digestible ideas which is considered escapism. It can be a God that helps us explain everything. It can be your refusal to accept that you're pretty broken in your mind and are not willing to face so you numb your mind with some cheap entertainment. Escapism has become too easy that we tend to forget to fight the battles that are out there. Escapism as a means of escaping the Absurd is not really the right way to go about the Absurd. Yes, when we are tired and need some juice to fight the battles, it makes sense to energise. But if it becomes an excuse to run away from the Absurd all the time, it will come back stronger.
Time out. Before I bog down in Camusian terminologies. Let me clear the air with its explanations:-
The Absurd:- The fact that universe is indifferent to the human quest for meaning, purpose and order.
Escapism:- Human tendency to escape the Absurd by either finding solace in some God or just being oblivious about reality.
The Revolt:- This is the only correct answer to the Absurd. One can Revolt against Absurd by not letting Absurd get hold of your precious asset, consciousness. Holding the nerve against the Absurd by fighting against with all your might is considered Revolt.
To effectively understand Absurdism let us talk about Sisyphus. He did something stupid that made God angry (gross oversimplification in favour of time). His punishment for that was to roll a boulder up and down a hill (the problem is that this Sisyphus dude is immortal and stuff). So my man Sisyphus is gonna roll some boulder up and down a hill forever. What a meaningless boring life, I'm sure he's depressed. Right? But what are we doing? We are hustling (pushing the boulder) Monday through Friday with seemingly no inherent meaning (sure my meaning is to make money and have fun, but going in-depth into that gives you nothing but void). Why do we keep pushing the boulder if it's pain? Why did human persevere? Because the Universe randomly gives us just enough occasional happiness—intermittent reinforcement—to keep us addicted to the struggle. If we are pushing the boulder with a mentality "oh my god who the fuck pushes a fucking boulder all day, this is so pointless that I hate my life to the most" then we are in for some eternal pain, but if we accept that there's no meaning anyway in anything that's Revolt. The ability to not let the Absurdity of our existence have dominance over your Revolt is the ultimate idea. All we can claim to own is the present. If I confused you, all I'm saying is that accept whatever consciousness throws at you without getting controlled by that thought. So if we can learn to live by Revolting against the Absurd, one must imagine Sisyphus happy. The point is:-
If you're miserable, feel the misery.
If you're suffering, feel the suffering.
If you're euphoric, feel the euphoria.
If you're angry, feel the anger.
Feel the streams of consciousness without getting controlled by it.
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For some time I thought life would start falling into its place if I went on the quest to be "The Enlightened"; I still am to a certain degree but not quite in the way I was around 6 years ago. 6 years ago I was locked in to get as much as information as possible. At some point it hit me that I'm not really present anymore. I'm simply chasing an abstract sense of Future Lloyd that will be "seemingly" wise and enlightened. At times I will get extremely frustrated with myself for not being wise enough for certain situations. But right now my attitude has shifted a little. Being present is all it takes. Let's try to rationalise this. What is the past? something which used to exist but doesn't anymore. What about the future? something which also doesn't exist but may or may not exist. So what do we have? A small fleeting sliver jammed between both of these suckers called the present. There is a lot of wisdom hiding in the present which I failed to see for a while. I'm not preaching that only be "mindful". All I'm saying is we all get so caught up with life that we give too much shit about the past and future.
Peace, I'm out.