ABSURDITY & SUICIDE

Nasrin Akter

Assistant Professor

Media and Mass Communication

American International University- Bangladesh

Shaila Ahmed

Senior Assistant Professor

Department of English

American International University- Bangladesh

Every time a news of suicide we come across, it reminds us of French philosopher Albert Camus’s first few lines from his famous philosophy book ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’. The book starts by saying, “There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest - whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories - comes afterwards”.  

Camus saw suicide as the ultimate result of existential crisis. He thinks it’s a confession of the individual that life is not worth living. He termed this confession as the "feeling of absurdity." But when does someone have this feeling, the feeling that nothing matters? 

The feeling of absurdism appears when the individual experiences the fundamental conflict in the universe. Ever since the human brain developed, it wandered about the meaning of existence, the purpose of life. Unfortunately, individuals live in a world that does not provide any answer to such existential questions. The universe is completely silent. So, it appears that we search for the meaning in a meaningless universe. This is what gives birth to absurdity which eventually leads to the famous philosophical problem- the existential crisis! To make the idea of absurdity clearer, Camus used the story of Sisyphus from Greek mythology. Sisyphus cheated death twice. The gods punished him for this with the burden of the most unproductive job that involved rolling a huge stone to the top of a mountain. But as soon as the stone reaches the top, it backs down. Sisyphus has no option but to pull it again the next day. This continues eternally and creates an endless loop of unproductivity for Sisyphus. His struggle goes in vain. The gods believed that was the worst form of punishment. But Camus spoke from a different view which is, Sisyphus pulling the stone up again even though he knows it's going to fall back is what makes him an ultimate rebel. Because, instead of giving up, Sisyphus accepted this meaningless or absurdist nature of his life and carried on.

Camus found Sisyphus’s condition very similar to human existence. Whatever humans do all throughout their life is repetitive in nature. They wake up in the morning, have their breakfast, go to work, come back home, eat dinner, go to sleep and then repeat the same thing again and again just like Sisyphus did. When an individual perceives this nature of ridiculous repetitions of daily life, they find everything pointless and comical. This leads to the emergence of questions like ‘what is this all about?’, ‘what is the point?’, ‘what is the meaning of all this?’ etc. But absurdity doesn't occur in the event of looking for answers to such questions. The juxtaposition of universe’s silence and individual’s search for answers to such fundamental questions gives rise to absurdity. Consider our modern life. We are constantly getting detached from the rhythm of nature to which we have been accustomed throughout the entirety of our evolutionary history. Uprooted from our birthplaces, heading toward cities for livelihood, separated from our friends & family and neighbors we knew while growing up. This new city life is totally devoid of the routine of life our genes are accustomed to. 

We are on a constant search for more; more power, more praise, more respect, more money, more degrees, more belongings; as if we are losing sanity, our very own selves in search of this ‘more’. We’ve become indifferent about life, family, people or anything and everything around us. We get so consumed with our work, our survival that we grow numb and alienated from the aspects that are of real value and importance.  

Moreover, we must go through the ocean of chaotic contradictions that are absurdist in nature too. Our educational books teach us the virtue of ethics and morality but in reality, we are valuing ourselves and others based on possessions, power, status. We tell our kids to be good but then put them in the rat race of winning the highest mark, topmost position and highest salary by any means. We say ‘we care for you’ to our loved ones but we barely talk to them or ask them how they are really doing. Our social media were supposed to connect us with the world in a positive way but instead they trapped us into dungeons of noisy loneliness, disconnection, false manifestation and constant fear of missing out. Our motivational speakers are telling us to be satisfied with whatever we have but in between their speeches we are seeing advertisements that invite us to buy products that have magical power to solve all our problems and make us happy. There are millions of such contradictions in this modern society which can plant the germs of rot in our mind making it vulnerable. Modern society & its system, alienation, our indifference towards each other, absurd contradictions, they all pile up to create an existential burden. Any simple form of frustration at that time can be the final nail in the coffin. 

Yes, life can be difficult and problematic. But difficulties or problems are meant to be solved, not to be avoided. There are endless possibilities in life and each has multiple alternatives. One isn’t working doesn’t mean that is the end! If Sisyphus can alone keep rolling the stone and become superior to his fate or stronger than his stone, then why can't we as a cooperative race do that? We humans have our friends, family, neighbors, colleagues and even strangers to share our burden. We can communicate our problems and help each other in distress and that capability is what made us human. So all we need is just a little bit of ‘a sincere- I care for you’.