I wrote my way to the clarity and truth I have now. Most philosophers do the same thing. They write to find truth.
When I look at philosophical texts, I see where they got stuck in the human rules, in their own stories and perceptions, and I understand how incredibly difficult it is to challenge those things.
Many times, I question how much these old philosophers were able to fully live their philosophies. Kierkegaard, for example, did live his philosophy—at the expense of everything else. Why? Because he lived it in secret. He hid, avoided relationships, all but dodged life to maintain integrity with his philosophy.
The problem that many have is that the philosophy becomes the justification for their life choices. They end up in a mental loop where their philosophy justifies their choices, and their choices justify their philosophy. Even if it creates pain, they accept that as the consequence of living life the way they’ve conceptualized it. Kierkegaard believed that the pain he felt was the point. The pain was the point of the human experience. The pain justified his philosophy.
Kierkegaard, Sartre, Jung, Camus, and many others brought messages to life that they felt would help the world. How closely they were able to align with and live by those messages varies from person to person. What is true for all of them is that they used writing to understand themselves and their lives. Their writing and philosophies reflect their own personal pain and struggle.
Right or wrong, those philosophies helped to shape the course of history. To some degree, they’ve shaped my perception of the world as well. Their philosophies are still debated and talked about in classrooms and online forums the world over. Whether or not we agree with what they wrote, they are shaping human perspectives to this day.
For my own small part in this play we call life, I’ve endeavored to find the loops, the patterns, the sticking points, and the struggles. Where human rules limited a philosophy, it was the human rule that was the problem, not the philosophy. By breaking the human rules, most of these philosophies can be lived quite freely.
The concept of absurdity that Camus brought forth has a lot of truth to it. Meaning is ours to create through our perception. Realizing this created a conundrum for Camus, because if experience has no inherent meaning and it’s ours to create, then what’s the point of experience? This thought loop is what he labelled as absurdity.
I would argue that the experience itself is the point of the experience. Why does there need to be a greater purpose? If you believe in it, then maybe Universal expansion can be the reason for experience—but if not, then the experience serves as its own justification. You could take it a step further and argue that what you gain from the experience is the point of the experience. Pain isn’t all that can be gotten from an experience. There is plenty of truth to be found in even the most painful of experiences, if you’re willing to look for it.
Camus, through his philosophy of absurdity, ended up examining his own painful perceptions and questions around why we’re here. He was never able to answer his own question. He got tied up in his own thought loop. This is the reason for the writing. This is what makes his writing more meaningful. This is what gives the philosophy power. He lived it, and he tried to solve it. But solving it wasn’t the point. The conundrum was enough to take him on a powerful journey of experience. Those experiences shaped who he was and how he lived. There is plenty of power in that, whether he got stuck or not.
I’m sharing this because I see myself in their work. Not because I have some amazing philosophical framework to share, but because I recognize the power of what they were doing through their work. It’s something I do with my own work as a writer. I write to find truth, and I find truth to write. That’s what they did. In doing so, they shaped millions of people’s lives and perspectives, including my own.
For that, I am truly grateful for the work they did.
Love to all,
Della