The Absurd Poet

I have been thinking for a while about my quest of curiosity. I dare not assume that goal should be the reason for the adventure, but thy adventure itself has immensely gratifying truth attach to it. Also, I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it¹. I may be able to find the answer if I sacrifice my whole life for the sake of truth, but I have a life to live, the journey to travel and adventure to explore.

But still I have a deep gaping hole in my heart about purpose; perhaps maybe it is an inherent nostalgia of unity, an insistence upon familiarity, an appetite for clarity seducing me to it. Luring me towards the absolute with the release of responsibility from reason or consciousness and asking me to bow down my reason to emotions. But I have a pride, pride of being a man of reason. I cannot fathom things which are beyond the rationale of human nature, but simultaneously I know human faculty by itself has its own limitation. What should I do? Bow my reason to roses of illusion to satiate my thirst for the absolute, which also provides the transcendental high, by taking a leap or try to find my mead within the heraldic “epoche” of reality and ascend to the rhythmical heights of Babylon; as done by existentialist or phenomenologist.

The absurd hero¹ provides the third path by accusing both of philosophical suicide on the premise of taking one side of the scale which defines the absurd in the human-world reality. When man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born as a tension between human yearning for nostalgia and unbowed silence from the universe. Absurd is the constant source of consciousness derived by the perpetuity of acknowledgment from the humbleness of human reason and its quest to defy it. The absurd hero wants to be free against nondetermined reality; he wants me to rebel against the absurd to find something stronger than my fate. As he once said to himself,

“In midst of hate, I found there was, within me, an invincible love.
In the midst of tears, I found there was, within me, an invincible smile.
In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm.
I realized, through it all, that…
In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.
And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me, within me, there’s something stronger – something better, pushing right back.¹”

I find a great solace in his words as I see terrible things or forces by which human existence is nothing but simmer of dust in sands of time but still, he stands tall as an immovable object of reason against unstoppable forces of reality to represent – a supreme state of consciousness. The absurdity of this truth amuses me; the state of unbowed unbent unbrokenness² of an absurd man in conscious of his Sisyphean plight makes him an unsung hero worthy of admiration.

Which path is right, which one symbolizes the truth is something fickle by nature. As humans by nature, we inculcate panoply of ideas which materializes our way of life. We all are atheists by birth, agnostic by reason, believers by the hope and existential by curiosity. I simply tend to think that people live by the creed or essence which defines their relative perception of reality; at the same time imbibing other values without awareness.

But this doesn’t end my plight or journey; even when I am rebel by nature, I am also a poet by heart. Poetry and music have always been my guiding light. They bring out the truth of reality which is obscured by the universe, but they are very demanding mistresses because they don’t bend easily to reason. Maybe I am wrong to subjugate everything to rationale as Emerson said, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little mind” or I am still naive to understand the mess of the world we live. In any case, I shall explore these lustful wines which do not compound easily within the aspect of reasoning and I will not kill myself every day by being prideful of being wrong if I can soar towards the heaven in search of truth and freedom.

Hence, I intend to rebel, I don’t Intend to go gentle into the good night³, I Intend to go in extreme and that is where I will find the truth. In darkness we see light. In reflection, we find acceptable. In willingness we see hope.

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1 Albert Camus
2 Song of Ice and Fire
3 Dylan Thomas

 

 

One book that everyone should definitely read

Usually, people ask if there is a book which will help them so immensely that it will have a huge impact on their life. The problem with this logic is, everyone is unique and every person has its own interests and penchants. But rarely comes a book which provides a keen insight into the intricacies of the wide domain. One such book is “The Last lecture from Randy Pausch”, basically it is an upbeat lecture by Brainiac American professor of computer science and human-computer interaction and design, Randy Pausch entitled “The Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams” on September 18, 2007 at Carnegie Mellon, who learned that he had pancreatic cancer, a terminal illness. This became a popular YouTube video and led to other media appearances. He then co-authored a book called The Last Lecture on the same theme.

Just imagine if you have 1 hour to provide the insight of your 48 years of life to your children, family, friends, and colleague, who will  never see you again, how would that 1 hour be?. Imbibing the whole experience of 48 years of learnings, mistakes, achievements and everything into 60 minutes would make those 60 minutes truly worthwhile. Now you take it up to the next level by considering a man who lived stupendous life, trying to achieve all his childhood dreams and was always surrounded with wise and warm people. So you can guess a concoction of all this would be nothing short of indescribable.

It might not be something about enlightenment provided by the erudite such as Immanuel Kant, Socrates or the others, but it provides a medium to access to the modest philosophy of Scientist who lived fullest and utilized each and every second of life. Randy provides down to earth, simple philosophical lessons mixed with humor through the events of his life’s which are invaluable to anyone and makes more accessible to everyone (Good luck trying to decipher those dry Greek philosophers if you thinking about them ).

The best thing about this book is that it is short and easily comprehensible. I completed this book approximate in 5 hours (Obviously not in one go); I feel each and every 224 pages of the book had something insightful to offer not just for the computer programmers, philosophy geeks or virtual reality freaks, it is for anyone who is a dreamer, learner, star trek fan, Salesmen, Sportsmen, Educator, Leader, teacher or anyone who wants to make something out of life. It offers wisdom, not just to one sect of people, but to the humanity itself.

I can definitely provide some bullet points lesson from this book, which many people have tried to do it and I am not against them, t Its’ my philosophy that when I read something extraordinary I tend to take what I find important, but when you read the same thing you might find something so enlightening that I might have missed. So I encourage everyone to take their own wisdom from this great piece of art and literature. Lastly, I would suggest people who are not into reading; they should definitely watch his actual lecture video which is around 1 hour.