Absurdism, as I choose to interpret it, is a philosophical belief that centers around the absurd meaninglessness of life and its surrounding chaos. It is fundamentally human to try and find meaning in life. Whether through God or Science humans try and dissect their surrounding world in order to find explanations and meaning for the random and absurd events that happen to them.

There is something to be said about dissecting the world through the lenses of science and religion. The dissection of the world through scientists inquiry has given us some of the greatest technological advancements in the last 200 years. The dissection of the world through religion has provided the world with a established code of morality before there were ever governments to enforce laws and keep people safe.

The dissection of the world, the fundamental desire to find out “Why did this happen?” and ”How did this happen?” are at their most simple and unclouded level an attempt to alleviate the fundamental anxiousness caused by existence. Existence is fundamentally painful.

To deviate form this high level essay and give an example we can look at an episode from a Cartoon Show which is one of my favorites. “Rick and Morty” is a Comedic Cartoon show about a genius scientist, existentialist, and Alcoholic man named Rick and his adventures with his grandson Morty. In one of the episodes Rick is asked to use his great mind to help his family with their problems. In response he gives them a device which brings into existence creatures called Meeksess. Meeksees are creatures who exist for a purpose and cease to exist immediately after they have completed the last they were assigned to do. Rick’s unintelligent Son in law, Jerry, asks the Meeksees to take two strokes off his golf swing. This proves to be a challenging task. Eventually the first Meeksees in an effort to end his existence faster invites another Meeksees to help him with Jerry’s Golf swing. This process goes on until there are dozens of Meeksees in existence. They begin to live in agony as they cannot complete their ordained task. In the end they decide they have to kill Jerry to complete their task because a dead Jerry will have no strokes on his golf swing thus completing the Meeksees purpose. I won’t ruin the end of the episode, as you should watch it after reading this, but the Meeksees drastic solution to their problem is evidence to the pain they feel by existing. In fact one Meeksees even says to Jerry “”Existence is pain for a Meeksees Jerry!”.

Existence is not only pain for the Meeksees. Existence is pain for humans. We search relentlessly for meaning in life. We want to know why we feel the barrage of emotions, many of which negative, that plague our existence. Is it gods plan? Is it because these emotions helped us survive when were primitive apes on the african savanna?

I propose that we feel this barrage of emotions because Existence is fundamentally absurd. Existence is chaos. Existence is pain. Like the Meeksees, most of us live for a purpose. This purpose gives us the strength to bear through the explosive train wreck that is human emotion.

This search for meaning, this dissection of the world and our lives, through either science or religion; although soothing on the surface, is actually prolonging our misery. The desire to hold on. The prevalence of our purpose. The desire to exist. Is the source of our agony.

We cling to the things which we think define us and our purpose. Our Jobs, our money, our friends and family. These are by no means worthless pursuits and desires. We should not abandon the world and everything in it because it is inherently worthless. The problem of human existence and the cause of our suffering is not what we do in life. It is the lens through which we view what we do.

When we dissect the world and assign causes and explanations for what happens to us we may feel temporary relief. However, later on we may come across a happening which will conflict with the beliefs and explanations we have laid out before. This is what causes much of our suffering.

If i confide in a friend and he supports me and shares the burden of my misery. I conclude that he is a good friend. I will continue to confide in him. Until one day this friend refuses to help me carry my burdens and maybe even adds to them. This will in no doubt cause me distress. Because I had dissected my situation and decided that this friend was a good person. However now I may have to revaluate my beliefs. Many people would see the suffering associated with this a part of growth. It is.

What if however instead of dissecting the situation and trying to establish a meaning, explanation, or point in it, I just accept it?

There is a certain type of therapy that was developed in the 20th century to treat people with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). BPD is a disease where people have grossly out of proportion reactions to relatively minor events in life. The therapy was called Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT). The main tenents of this school of therapy were designed to focus on the duality and unity of life. That there are two sides to every coin, but despite which side you are on there is but one coin. The therapy’s practice centered around group therapy and Mindfulness meditation. One of the main pillars of the DBT program is something called Radical Acceptance.

Radical acceptance was a technique designed for the use for the seriously mentally ill. It is, however, a technique that should be practiced by all people. As all of us are at the core disillusioned and delusional beings.

Radical acceptance is the idea that when we encounter a situation, especially situations which are distressing to us, we have options. We can worry over the situation and try to avoid it. We can fight the situation and try to dominate over it. Or we can accept it and move on accordingly from there. According to DBT, if we do not at first “Radically” accept the situation we are in, accept it with no conditions attached, any action we take will be flawed and lead to excessive suffering for us and those around us.

Radical Acceptance, in terms of absurdist philosophy, is accepting our situation, our existence, without looking for a certain explanation or trying to find the reason why it happened.

The schools of philosophy, religion, and science go fundamentally against Radical Acceptance. We think the more we know the more we will be at peace. It is in fact the opposite. Knowledge causes distress, and ignorance is bliss.

In buddhism the cause of life’s suffering is desire. Radical acceptance is inherently the western concept of Buddhist detachment. When we accept where we are without condition, when we accept our emotions without condition. We are ultimately free. The pain of existence is lifted. We achieve nirvana.

This relief from the burdens of existence does not necessarily have to come from abandoning society and all the dissection of the world that comes with it. In fact retreating to the mountain tops and spending our days in meditation gives us less of an opportunity to practice Radical Acceptance and reap its benefits. Existence is suffering. Suffering is Growth. Growth is Acceptance. And Acceptance is the most fundamental form of existence. The ability to embrace the absurdities of life and take them in stride, in jest even, is the mark of the enlightened man.

Two men return to the train station parking lot after their commute home from work. Both find their car broken into and their stereo stolen. One curses himself for being so stupid as to not lock his door, and curses God for allowing this tragedy to happen to him. He drives home angry and takes his frustration out on his loved ones. The other man returns to find his car stereo stolen. He is disappointed and upset for sure, but he immediately recognizes that in this moment there is nothing he can do. So he accepts the fact his stereo was stolen. He drives home laughing as his acceptance has given him a clear mind and he now sees how humorous it is that he bought a car with a 5 star safety rating and yet forgot to lock his doors. He goes home and tells the humorous story to his wife.

One man meets a negative experience with idea that this was unfair and he was at fault for leaving his car unlocked and God was at fault for letting this negative experience happen to him. The other man was upset that this happened to him as well, but rather then fight the situation and himself he accepted it. He was confronted with an example of life’s absurdity and embraced it. Both men felt negative emotions, but one justified his emotions by claiming that this experience was some how his, God’s, or someones fault. The other man recognized the absurdity of the situation and accepted it instead of trying to explain or justify it.

Existence is pain. But existence is only pain as long as we keep trying to make sense of existence. As long as we continue to desire meaning, money, power, love etc. and keep analyzing how much we have or why we don’t have it, even if we achieved what we wanted we would still be unhappy.

The question then becomes how does one not desire without desiring not to desire. Radical Acceptance provides a solution. We must not only radically accept existence but also, and foremost, radically accept ourselves.

We must accept whole heartedly where we are right now. We must see that we are at the pinnacle of our existence right now. We always were and always will be our best self. So we must accept the fact that the vast majority of us do not radically accept.

Therein lies the absurdity of it all. We are perfect right now. Existence may be suffering but at the same time it is joy. Upon acceptance of the absurdity of life the dual becomes the non-dual. Good and evil both become ideas. Life is both entirely meaningless and absurd, but that meaninglessness and absurdity become the meaning and explanation for life.

Maybe the Meeksees idea to kill Jerry is in essence the action of radical acceptance. Maybe we can not achieve our purpose in life, maybe we will never find meaning but by embracing the idea of absurdity we can evaluate where we are right here right now. See that if we can’t achieve our purpose we can at least resign form it, embrace the idea of the absurd, disregard “What should be” and fade into the bliss of “What is”.