The Porch Light at # 42

My dear perceptive reader, to use a marvelously pithy phrase originating in popular culture, I’m back!! My literary dry spell, which I sincerely hope is in the past, was, I believe a product of the mundane banality of everyday life, a life with no immediate purpose, a life which goes from day to day to day, and not a bit further. Purpose seems to be so important, does it not? It saves us from the ordinary, the boring. Most importantly, it saves us from ourselves. As Agent Smith says to Neo;

There is no escaping reason; no denying purpose. Because as we both know, without purpose, we would not exist.
It is purpose that created us,
Purpose that connects us,
Purpose that pulls us,
That guides us,
That drives us,
It is purpose that defines us,
Purpose that binds us.

Albert Camus, an existentialist writer, believed that boredom or waiting, which is essentially the breakdown of routine or habit, caused people to think seriously about their identity, much as Estragon and Vladimir do in Samuel Beckett’s classic ‘Waiting for Godot’. In The Plague, Camus suggests that boredom or inactivity causes the individual to think. Camus, and other existential writers, suggested that attempting to answer the rhetorical questions of life could drive someone to the point of insanity.

So, what do we do? We, using the escapism that our species is so famed for, try oh-so-hard to remain oblivious of our condition. We remain cheerful, perhaps stupidly so, to a neutral observer, and seek distraction in actions which are essentially pointless. We are pathetically desperate, to put it quite plainly. To impose pattern and meaning on the world, humans will rely on nebulous outside forces for relief and distraction from their…. er…. predicament. This is the only thing that seems to keep a lot of them going. Ergo, God! In my belief, the concept of a god is the result of a truncated search. One has no energy left to pursue the quest, and one settles, one compromises. But perhaps the search for meaning is pointless, perhaps there is none. Perhaps life just IS. No strings attached. But this outlook can be bleak, and is not for everyone. Humans, with all their inherent flaws and insecurities, don’t seem to be able to handle the gargantuan reality that is the ephemeral, transient nature of our lives. Existentialism can be taken just a bit too far, as is amply demonstrated by this 1972 Woody Allen movie called “Play it again, Sam”.

Woody Allen: That's quite a lovely Jackson Pollock, isn't it?

Girl In Museum: Yes it is.

WA: What does it say to you?

GIM: It restates the negativeness of the universe, the hideous lonely emptiness of existence, nothingness, the predicament of man forced to live in a barren, godless eternity, like a tiny flame flickering in an immense void, with nothing but waste, horror, and degradation, forming a useless bleak straightjacket in a black absurd cosmos.

WA: What are you doing Saturday night?

GIM: Committing suicide.

WA: What about Friday night?

GIM: [leaves silently]

Disturbing, isn’t it? Taking life as it comes can go only so far. Stretch it too much, and like an old rubber-band, it snaps right back at you. ‘Futile passion’ is what Sartre calls life, and it seems to me to be an appropriate description. But what this does is introduce a value conundrum. Traditional ideas about moral responsibility disappeared when there was nothing meaningful to be responsible about. Sartre consequently tried to compensate for this by introducing a new, strengthened sense of responsibility. His view was that one is "responsible" for all the consequences of one's action, whether it is possible to know about them or not. This in turn, introduces another problem. You may be "responsible" for all the consequences of your actions, but if you don't know what they all are, then it really doesn't make any difference, does it. Does ignorance pardon consequence? Again, frightening, isn’t it?

The quest for meaning is futile, that much is amply clear to me, even if it may not be so to you, my dear reader. Enter ‘Habit’ and ‘Routine’. Beckett puts it best in one of his essays,

"Habit is a compromise effected between the individual and his environment, or between the individual and his own organic eccentricities, the guarantee of a dull inviolability, the lightening-conductor of his existence. Habit is the ballast that chains the dog to his vomit. Breathing is habit. Life is habit."

But what in the name of a fictional god in heaven am I doing? I’m sure that you, my dear perceptive reader, will be quite prepared to rip out my entrails. All that preceded this was not the reason for this post. It has been, to use the word again, an exercise in futility. But, since I have bored you halfway to death already, I am condemned to brevity. (Noooooo!!)

My point, my dear reader, was this. Humans go to great length in search for meaning. We search for it in wealth, we search for it in women, and we search for it in wine. Life is hard, of that there could be no denial. And yet life possesses value, simply because we give it some. Life, in one of its extremely rare benevolent moments, decided that it would give us a reprieve of sorts. If, as we wander far and wide in our quest for meaning, slaying our own personal evil dragons, rescuing our gorgeous damsels in distress, we feel overwhelmed, as is very probable, life allows us to retreat. It permits us a reprieve, into a safe circle, one which we are comfortable with, one which we are in control of. Let us not make the mistake made by Alexander. As life is inherently meaningless, the search for aforesaid meaning is ultimately doomed. And so, the quest is all there seems to be. The journey in itself serves as an end. As we reach new frontiers, unknown boundaries, uncharted lands to be conquered, let us not stretch ourselves to breaking point. Let us remember to go back every so often, to consolidate, and to recuperate. Take some time off, sit down, and take stock. My dear reader, I think you will find that life treats you like a doting father does his prodigal daughter. He will not hinder your search for the meaning, for the truth of your existence; in fact he might actually support, or even actively encourage it. But no matter how far abroad you go, he will always, always leave a porch light burning for you back home. Know that you are always welcome to stop the relentless pursuit and for once actually relax. And perhaps, someday, when you are wise enough, or perceive clearly enough, you might see that what you have been searching for all this while, expending all your energies, can never be found, because it is you yourself, no more, and most certainly no less.