November 07, 2018 Wednesday
Bedtime Story
Camus Himself Does Not Offer Anything Better
Camus sees no difference between workers
employed in assembly lines such as one that existed in Olds Motor Vehicle
Company doing same thing repeatedly their entire life and Sisyphus and writes:
“The workman of today works everyday in his
life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd.
But it is tragic only at the rare moments
when it becomes conscious.”
Camus does not stop here but ponders a
little bit more.
He wonders as to what would be going on in
the mind of Sisyphus as he walks down the hill after his repeated attempts to
push it atop has failed for umpteenth time.
Probably his steps would be heavy and
measured his face stiff and stony with perspiration of sweat drops rolling down
his furrowed brows as he heads back to the heavy boulder that has rolled down
totally aware that the torment is endless and relentless that is never going to
end.
This is the moment that is truly tragic
when Sisyphus realizes the futility of it all and his sealed fate.
At this moment there is no choice left for
our legendary Greek Hero but acceptance.
This is how the book ends, or almost ends,
and it is ironic that the philosopher who found Dostoevsky’s conclusions or
solutions unsatisfactory has himself proven to be far from adequate in
supplying the readers with a descent defense against the paradox of absurd.
The others probably lie to themselves and
to each other and assert that Sisyphus is both content and happy.
There is a small appendix in the end of the
book where Camus talks about Franz Kafka though I am not sure what kind of
philosophy Kafka subscribed to and what views he had concerning the paradox of
absurd.
Let us recollect why I had to digress to
Camus and his work “The Myth of Sisyphus”.
We were dealing with religious mythologies
and the question that why certain set of humans cling on to them so ferociously
against all reason and logic.
This question has its answers in the
paradox of absurd.
That our existence has no meaning and no
purpose but to embrace the naked truth as it is would lead to strife, war,
bloodshed and suicides as Dostoevsky saw it in his times in Russia.
Even those philosophers and thinkers who
did not find this obvious falsity very satisfactory such as Camus could not
come up with any better alternative.
This is so because there exists no other
alternative narrative.
Hence for this reason when faced with the
paradox of absurd the humans have only two means of recourse to take:
(1.) To accept the truth that there is no
way out of the paradox and live with it, lying to themselves that they are
content and at peace much in a way that Sisyphus is assumed to say to himself
“All is well with me” and we can imagine him to be happy.
Stay tuned to the voice of an average story storytelling
chimpanzee or login at http://panarrans.blogspot.com
Good night Mon Ami and my fellow cousin ape.
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Another great educator and a teacher that I am aware of is
Professor Subhashish Chattopadhyay in Bangalore, India.
While I narrate stories, Professor Subhashish an electronic
engineer and a former professor at BARC, does and teaches real mathematics and
physics.
He started the participation of Indian students at the
International Physics Olympiad.
Do visit him here:
All his books can be downloaded for free through this link:
For edutainment and English education of your children, I
recommend this large collection of Halloween Songs for Kids:
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