Absurdity

 

One of the characters in Kerala’s folklore is Naranath Bhranthan or the Lunatic of Naranam. He was too wise for the world of ordinary mortals. His wisdom is what made him appear insane to the less wise ones. His most eccentric and conspicuous habit was rolling a huge boulder uphill and then letting it go down as he stands there atop laughing loud. Once a goddess appeared to him and offered him a boon. “Shift the elephantiasis from my left leg to the right,” he said. The wish was granted.

He did not ask the goddess to remove the disease. For an ordinary person, his request is a clear sign of his insanity. The wise man knows that there is no ultimate escape from evil. Evil is an integral part of human existence; it may change shape.

Human endeavours are as absurd as one’s rolling of a boulder uphill with no purpose other than the rolling itself. You wake up early in the morning, cook food, prepare children for their school, send the children by their school bus, travel to your workplace in a crowded suburban train, endure the jostling of sweaty passengers, sit in front of the same computer and do the same work till evening day after day, endure another suburban train journey back home, cook, wash, go to sleep… Day after day, year after year. The children will grow up and the routine will change a bit. But no substantial change. The shape of the boulder may change. But you have to keep rolling it uphill forever.

You did not choose this lifestyle, perhaps. But did you have any choice at all?

Naranath Bhranthan chose his lifestyle. He was supposedly wise though people thought he was insane. He has a counterpart in Greek mythology: Sisyphus. Sisyphus rolled his boulder as a punishment from the jealous gods. Sisyphus knew he had no choice but roll the boulder which the gods would push down inevitably. But he never despaired. Rather he defied the gods. He forged the meaning of his life in that act of defiance.

Naranath Bhranthan created the meaning of his life in living out its sheer absurdity. How different is the absurdity of his choosing to roll a boulder uphill and then push it down from our routine everyday acts?

Life is absurd. It has no meaning other than what we write into it. Our career, children, and the intermittent entertainments. Often they don’t make much sense. So we bring in a god or two and some rituals to provide some sense to this senseless routine. And then some of us – perhaps those who fail in the more normal areas of career and family – choose to add even more sense to our lives by deciding to defend our gods. Then the human race is blessed with holy wars and jihads and crusades and terrorism and whatnot.

Gods and religions are harmless as long as they stay put in the private worlds where they should belong: temples and mosques and churches. Or, better, people’s hearts. If gods really resided in the believers’ hearts, they would have engendered a veritable paradise on the earth. Instead they keep creating hells. Absurd.

Life is absurd with or without the gods and their religions. There are exceptions, of course. There are thousands of people for whom life becomes far more bearable because of their gods and religions. We should not grudge them their little consolations. On the contrary, if something helps you to live fuller lives, better lives, why not go ahead with that? Even if that is illusory!

Yes, illusions have their deep comforts. That is another absurdity of human life. Illusions help us to disguise the emptiness within ourselves. Illusions can fill up that emptiness. Have you noticed how sad it is when an illusion of ours dies?

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It is not a bad idea, however, to live without illusions. If you have the guts to do that, you can choose to confront life with total integrity. Look into the very heart of life and see it for what it really is. Naranath Bhranthan’s boulders. Your career and its routine. A pandemic. What do they really mean?

Nothing. Nothing more than the brief flutters of the butterfly’s wings. Nothing more than the mimicking gestures of an ape in a zoo cage. Maybe as good as the warbling of a skylark.

We have the freedom to shape our actions into the skylark’s warbling instead of the ape’s mimicking. We have the freedom to confront our own life on our own terms without succumbing to the idols of the marketplace. We can refuse to capitulate to the demagogue’s vindictive slogans. We can rewrite the narratives of our own lives.

We can create the meaning of our own existence. We should. We shouldn’t let others do that job for us. We shouldn’t sell our souls to the politician and the priest, the upstart and the rabblerouser, or the rewriter of history.

Your soul is your property and your destiny. It is your burden and your joy. That is the ultimate absurdity of life. Face that absurdity. Take over its challenges. Work with those challenges with unconditional integrity. In spite of your frailty which is humanity’s frailty itself. In spite of your limitations which are humanity’s own limitations.  

Your life will become much richer and happier if you can do this. You will be able to live intensely and delightfully in the present though you will possess Sisyphus’s tragic, lucid and defiant consciousness.

 

PS. This is powered by Blogchatter’s #BlogchatterA2Z Challenge. 

A for Absurdity. 

Tomorrow: Bandwagon Effect