Is there meaning and purpose?
Or just fate and the absurd?
Good or Evil or both?
Beauty or Ugliness or both?
Light or Darkness or both?
Order or Chaos or both?
Meaning or Despair or both?
Destiny or Absurdity or both?
“Today I give thanks for it all,
Though I do not understand much of what I see,
I surrender anyway....
I trust in the Goodness of Life,
I open to the One that breathes me,
To the One who has given me one more day
To feel so alive and free”
(Flora Aube)
This really resonates within me… mostly. At least, I want to believe it.
But I can no longer trust “the One” that stands indifferent to all of the suffering in this world.
I can no longer put my faith in “the One”, whose only response to me is the indifference of silence and invisibility.
I keep coming back to a very obvious conclusion, there is something that is greater than me that sustains life and the universe. Without naming it or giving it a personality, maybe the One is what it is. And maybe no one really knows what it is. How could they? So for me, I think the “One that breathes me” is simply “that which breathes me” and gives me life. The Breath or Force that gives Life. No naming, no labeling. It is what it is. Or if Breath could make a first person statement, I am what I am. Of course, "first person" is personification, anthropomorphism, and simply put, creating god in our image. What we do know is that there is Something Greater that sustains us.
Obviously, there is some sort of order, some sort of initiation of life and creation, some sort of unmoved mover, some sort of ground of being, some sort of intelligence that gives sustainability to life. I also see that personally, at times, there is some sort of incidental graces or synchronicity that brings things together in my life that seems close to miraculous, something that can be perceived as meaning and purpose. I also see that I am exactly where I am meant to be at every moment. What does that mean? I have no idea. I see that everything I need, I already have. Is this just me slipping back into magical thinking? Or are these senses something real? Can I trust myself and my intuitive senses or is that just another illusion nurtured by absurdity?
In the quote at the beginning, “to the One” for me has a feeling of personification and anthropomorphism, like we are creating a god in our image that is a “friend” or an individual or a person or a projection of human characteristics that we hope for, all wrapped up in our imaginary friend in the sky. I have always strongly believed in meaning and purpose. I think that I believed it so strongly, needed it so strongly, that I was willing to create my own god that loves me and tells me what to do and watches out for me and listens to me when I cry out or pray… with no response, ever, but deathly, suffocating silence and unsettling, haunting invisibility in response.
“Rising, streetcar, four hours in the office or the factory, meal, streetcar, four hours of work, meal, sleep, and Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday and Saturday according to the same rhythm.” (The Myth of Sisyphus)
“This set up a disturbing problem for Camus. Recognizing that human existence is a futile merry go round with no end but death, stimulates an appetite for clarity – a desire to understand the absolute ordering principles and purpose behind the universe. But our reason is confined to the evidence from our experience, and thus when it comes to the spiritual comforts we long for, there can be no certainty whatsoever.” https://academyofideas.com/2016/04/introduction-to-camus-the-absurd-revolt-and-rebellion/
