Embracing the Absurd (Part 2)

By Luke Labern

I suppose you could call me controversial.

That would be just another label to add to all the others, but it would be more objective than most. It would take into account both sides of the ‘argument’. But to call people’s opinions on me an argument would be to wrongly imply that there was some sort of structure or overruling logic. There isn’t. There are a lot of emotional responses to the things I say, do and stand for, and that is what drives people to label me the things that they do.

I’m no different, but I at least try to take a step back every now and then and nod ironically, acknowledging the fact that I’m taking part in all these games. People are constantly trying to label things, pin them down and describe them; contain them into boxes which they can keep an eye on. The problem is, even if this was possible, no one has enough time to look after all of these different concepts. What takes precedence: a sudden familial illness or categorising everything in the world around us? We try to force everything with reason, but as soon as something strikes us even mildly in the heart, we immediately lose focus and can’t get it out of our minds.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks or says these things, but in all my searching for people of an exact likeness to myself, I have as yet returned no results. Perhaps, as I have already alluded to, the fact that I stand here and try to describe these events in the first place just ends up in a circular waste of effort, and I’m really no different whatsoever. But just like most people cannot help their reactions, emotions, drives, dreams and desires, I can’t help but feel like I can see things that other people can’t see, or I can somehow ‘put my finger on them’ and explain it to them. It’s irrelevant whether any of it can be changed… but that’s a big issue in itself. People seem to be split: some say that people ‘never change’, usually with a pessimistic inflection and a quiet sigh, whilst others are sure that men define themselves.

I believe that both of these things are true – to a degree. And perhaps it is because of this that you can start to guess why people have such polarised opinions of me. The saying ‘life’s too short’, is a rare platitude. Like most, it’s utterly overused – but this particular saying always seems to strike home. The reminder of our own mortality always gives rise to a quick pause for thought even in the most unrefined souls. Even an animal fears its own death. But I don’t think life is too short: I think it’s just the right length. Of course, it’s incredibly disconcerting to realise that one day the thoughts, sights, smells, sounds – your entire perception – will somehow be nullified, or silenced, or simply not there, but if this wasn’t the case then none of this would be worth it. Worth anything. That’s not to say that it’s ‘worth’ anything now – but we would hardly value a quickening heart beat, a kiss, excitement, nervousness, or any other emotion, if we knew that we were going to live forever. Nothing would have any urgency and the world would be stale.

But life is vivid. It is pure intensity: all of us are born terminally ill. Why must we wait until we are diagnosed with a disease to understand what a precious gift we are? (Or in a mathematical, less emotional vein: just how impossibly likely is it that you and I are alive, given the trillions upon trillions upon trillions of unborn beings? Not just unborn humans, but the unborn races, evolutionary dead-ends, the infinite number of beings who will never come into existence?) Why must we complain about our lack of time left, when we have had some at all? Before our births, we had been dead for at least a few billion years – why should we waste the time we have, here and now? We will get our share of heartbreak and of ecstasy, and then we must return to where we come from.

Yes: ‘good’ people do ‘bad’ things; ‘bad’ people do ‘good’ things; stupid people do clever things and clever people do stupid things. All that I am sure of in all of this chaos – because, although a lot of it is precisely organised, to my human mind, a lot of it certainly is chaos – is that I am human. Yes, I will err, and I will make the most of the things that I am good at. In the end, none of this will really matter. It might matter for a few years, to those who survive me – it might remain, in memoriam, to some of my ancestors down the line. But when humanity as a whole is finally at rest, it truly will not matter. Whatever species follow, I doubt I will matter to them. Perhaps there will eventually be no species at all: and then I certainly will not.

So, yes, I will regret some of the actions I have made – but with far more passion will I use their repercussions to shape myself further as a person, hoping to evolve with each passing year until I take my final breath.

Let the people say what they will: whether I am the hero or the villain, at least I know that I am alive.