I rarely delete posts from this blog, even the ones written late at night that I might regret in the morning. But I’ve just deleted my latest one. I’m not sure if I should have, perhaps I should have let it just sit here and speak its truth but now it’s gone. I’ll get back to this later, for now, I want to take a brief philosophical detour.
Whether we realise it or not, we’re all on our own journey to make sense of the universe. From the moment we are born, we begin forming ideas; some subconscious, and some deliberate, about existence and what it means to be human. Over time, these ideas evolve, shaped by the things we experience, the people we meet, whatever our senses take in. For me, that journey has mostly been about seeking clarity in the chaos. For years, I struggled to find a framework that made sense of my experiences with life.
From a startlingly young age, I came to the conclusion that the universe probably had no inherent meaning – this is not an essay on all the various schools of philosophy though, so I’ll try to keep the fancy words to a minimum. Early on, I viewed life as being profoundly difficult, and I still see existence itself as a nightmare. There is no grand purpose to the suffering we endure, nor is there any divine reason for us being here. Without a god or religion to provide me with a comforting framework, I was left to confront the darkness alone, and I was basically depressed from then onwards.
Whilst at university, I read all sorts of literature on the topic, hoping to find some perspective on the things that were troubling me. I learned a lot, and did manage to shift my outlook slightly. I found that the “solution” to life’s lack of meaning was to be active rather than passive (passivity is ironically still a form of activity but that’s not important right now). In being active, I could live authentically and find my own meaning. Despite this realisation, none of the philosophical schools really spoke to me, until I discovered Albert Camus and Absurdism.
Finally, clarity! I found a theory that reflected my experience. Absurdism begins with a simple but crushing realisation that the universe indeed has no inherent meaning, yet as humans, we are determined to seek meaning anyway. Therein lies the conflict at the heart of Absurdism. It is the clash of a man desperate to find a reason, and a cold and indifferent universe that couldn’t care less. Neither are absurd on their own, but the collision produces a conflict that is irrational and unreasonable. The absurdism becomes clearer when we look at it more bluntly; we know getting out of bed each morning is ultimately pointless in a universe without purpose, yet we do it anyway.
Camus offered three paths to respond to the hopelessness of life:
- End It – Suicide. Self-explanatory. Escape the absurd by ceasing to take part, but you will find no meaning or resolution, it just silences the question.
- Ignore It – Surrender to a higher power, embrace comforting illusions, turn away from the truth, but this is intellectually dishonest.
- Accept It – The preferred option. We can understand life’s lack of purpose, embrace it, and in doing so we will be free, unburdened by the weight of trying to find meaning.
I find this approach to be liberating, and practical. I do not find value in believing life has no purpose, and that it is therefore futile to find meaning. It makes more sense to me that in the absence of meaning, we can be free to create our own. We will never answer the big questions, and we must recognise that any meaning we create is personal and entirely subjective, it will not answer the universes deafening silence, but it doesn’t really need to. As Camus wrote, Sisyphus is doomed to roll his boulder up that hill again and again, but it doesn’t mean he can’t be happy while doing it.
It’s worth noting where Absurdism sits in relation to Nihilism and Existentialism. Nihilism asserts that life is meaningless, and we are fucked. Existentialism agrees with the absence of meaning, but insists that it is our responsibility to create our own. Absurdism, sitting between the two, acknowledges the irreconcilable tension between our search for meaning AND the universe’s indifference, but it urges us to embrace the paradoxical contradiction and carry on regardless. Absurdism doesn’t just reflect life; it is life itself. My existence may be a nightmare, but the freedom to confront it on my own terms is comforting.
Now, circling back to the deleted post…
It was about a bad date and a girl who ghosted me. She wasn’t worthy of my time then and she certainly isn’t now. But, of course, I am still thinking about it. I liked her, she was cool, she was into the same bands as me – and that does not happen often in my dating experience. It doesn’t matter though because she ghosted me mid conversation, and I have deleted the post in order to replace it with something a little broader.
I say broader, but it’s rooted in the same frustration, the same sense of futility I found in searching for meaning in my life. I’ve been ghosted and unmatched more times than I can count, and each time it chips away at me a little more. A week or so ago I matched with someone on Hinge. We had a fun conversation, messaged quite frequently, we’d even started talking about where to go on our date. Then, out of nowhere, she unmatched me. No explanation, no closure, nothing.
It’s hard not to take these things personally.
My friends tell me I have bad taste in women. I’ve been told by some exes that there’s nothing particularly wrong with me. Still though, I keep ending up in the same place, questioning what is wrong with me. Why can I not get past this endless cycle, this same foregone conclusion? Am I the common denominator, or just part of a broken dating culture where people are disposable, and it’s left me burned out and hopeless. If I can quote someone who had enough of me after just one date, “you have a soft heart and the world sure does give those a battering.”
I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions lately, and not just about dating, but about what I want from life overall. In therapy, we discuss what I am looking for. Do I want the same things as my peers who are getting engaged, married, and starting families? Do I want them, or have I been conditioned to think I want them? I’m beginning to wonder if I am self-sabotaging, or self-preserving. Am I pulling back from relationships because deep down I am unready or unwilling to compromise the independence and freedom I have worked so hard to find? Can one exist with the other? A topic for another time.
These thoughts aren’t new to me, but they’ve weighed on me a lot more lately. They’re part of a bigger riddle I am trying to solve, one I’ve been working on for years. Meaning, purpose, navigating a life that feels like a random series of events and disconnected chaos. That’s what led me here, to the philosophical detour at the beginning of this post. Whether dating, relationships, or just life itself as a whole, my experience is fraught with tension as I look for meaning where there is none. I have no answers, I am uncertain, and this results in the decisions I need to make feeling that much heavier.