Life sucks, laugh about it

[Absurdity]

Excerpted from Seneca's "On Tranquility of Mind"

But to get rid of the causes of personal sorrow gains us nothing, for sometimes hatred of the human race possesses us. When you reflect how rare simplicity is, how unknown innocence, how seldom faith is kept unless keeping it is good policy, when you recall the long calendar of successful crime, the profits and losses of lust, alike odious, and ambition that no longer keeps to its proper confines but rises to eminence through skullduggery, then the mind is plunged into black night and darkness envelops us, as if the virtues were overthrown and we could no longer possess them or aspire to them. The trend of thought we ought to pursue therefore, is to make the common failings of the crowd not odious but ridiculous, and emulate Democritus rather than Heraclitus. Heraclitus wept whenever he went out in public, and Democritus laughed: when one thought of our behavior pitiful, the other thought it silly. We ought to take the lighter view of things and cultivate tolerance; it is more civilized to laugh at life than to lament over it. Further, the man who laughs at the human race deserves more gratitude than the man who mourns over it, for he allows it hope of amelioration, whereas the foolish weeper despairs of the possibility of improvement. And in the larger view, the man who does not restrain laughter shows a nobler spirit than the man who does not restrain tears, for laughter involves slight emotional commitment and indicates that nothing in the appurtenances of life is important or serious or even pitiful.

This is something I grapple with, and I doubt I am alone in that respect. Looking at my peers I find myself overcome with disgust at their shallow aspirations, their dearth of creativity, and the howling chasms of insecurity they paper over with the flimsiest of facades. I came to this university, one of the best in the country, indeed even the world, hoping to find genuine and inspired individuals. And there have been some, but it has been such a chore to discover them, like shifting through a heap of shit for a single pearl, and all too often we go our separate ways before very long. All of this has left me with an aching sadness I can only distract myself from, and never actually overcome.

Or can I? If life is meaningless and owes us nothing then what is there to be disappointed about? Supplant angst with amusement. Seneca is right to assert that the man who laughs is of nobler spirit. He is like Camus' Sisyphus: stronger than his rock.

It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.

If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.

[...]

I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

 

[ℜεмїηїs¢εη¢ε]

AhahahaHAhaahaHAHAHAHAHAHAahahahahAHAHAH!H!

 

[Reluctantly]

I don't know. I find it equally as silly to laugh at it as it is to weep for it. Laughing mocks it, while weeping over-values it, giving it too much importance. I don't think laughing is what Camus was suggesting either, although I don't know if you inferred that into Camus's passage or if it is to support Seneca's; I'm assuming the latter.

What I want is to merge with both and use that understanding to give my actions meaning in themselves, without needing expectations of my actions or reality in order to act. It's the expectations and judgments about what reality should or shouldn't be that seems to trip me up. One can act and fail to reach a desired outcome, while still enjoying the failure; reality can be disordered, chaotic, and nonsensical, while still enjoying the amalgamation. That's what I want. Then maybe there is no longer existential suffering. But it's easier said than done.

 

[Absurdity]

I don't know. I find it equally as silly to laugh at it as it is to weep for it. Laughing mocks it, while weeping over-values it, giving it too much importance.

I think it is important to distinguish between laughing at it and laughing because of it. The former betrays a much more vulnerable position vis-a-vis one's fate, while the latter is only possible when one becomes immune to the capriciousness of Fortune.

I don't think laughing is what Camus was suggesting either, although I don't know if you inferred that into Camus's passage or if it is to support Seneca's; I'm assuming the latter.

Yeah you're right that the two sort of contradict one another. I just saw a parallel between deriving a sense of satisfaction with one's self irrespective of the external conditions one is subjected to. I also just really like that essay and Camus in general haha.

What I want is to merge with both and use that understanding to give my actions meaning in themselves, without needing expectations of my actions or reality in order to act. It's the expectations and judgments about what reality should or shouldn't be that seems to trip me up. One can act and fail to reach a desired outcome, while still enjoying the failure; reality can be disordered, chaotic, and nonsensical, while still enjoying the amalgamation. That's what I want. Then maybe there is no longer existential suffering. But it's easier said than done.

Yes. This is precisely the point I was getting at. Earlier in Seneca's essay he illustrates this with examples of how admirable individuals confronted loss:

Our master Zeno remarked, when he received word that all his possessions had gone to the bottom in a shipwreck, 'Fortune bids me philosophize with a lighter pack.' When a tyrant threatened the philosopher Theodorus with death and deprivation of sepulture, he said, 'You are in a position to please yourself; the two gills of blood are at your disposal. As for burial, what a fool you are to think it makes any difference to me whether I rot above ground or beneath it.'