Muad’dib and terrible purpose
Paul Atreides of Herbert’s Dune trilogy felt hemmed in, moved by some terrible purpose. He wondered if his prescience foretold the future, or made the future…
“At some faraway instant in a past which he had shared with others, this future had reached down to him. It had chivvied him and herded him into a chasm whose walls were growing narrower and narrower. He could feel them closing in on him. This was the way the vision went.”
Is this how it is with all of us? It is, if Camus is right. If we should live in such a way so as to maximize our own sense of fulfillment and minimize our own negative feelings, then we are constrained, confined by our past and its influence on our personality. Our decisions today will be determined by the events of our past and the imprint they have left on us. If I was brought up in a Judeo-Christian system, then I must make my decisions accordingly, or else face my own dissatisfaction and feelings of guilt or dishonor. If I act according to my conscience, then I feel fulfilled. Of course, this is an oversimplification. There are also basic natural impulses that come into play, but all of these fit together to fix the course that my life “should” take, if I live for for no higher purpose.
In fact, my life emerges from nothing, like a termite mound, its shape reflecting the balance of forces in my psyche and environment, and those forces emerging from the same process. And all is without true purpose. It is self-organizing, self-created. Alone. Pointless. But growing, advancing, like fate. It is fate, I suppose.
Meursault’s Meaning, Camus’ Conundrum
I just finished listening to The Stranger by Camus. It has moved me a bit closer, I think, to clarity on this whole issue of meaning. The main character, Meursault, is clearly reduced to an animal by his philosophy. He lives only for the sensual, the immediate. How is this different from the animal, the beast?
This much is clear from the book. This does not match the analysis which followed. In interview with an “existentialism scholar” followed the book. He tried (in vain) to explain Camus ethic and his “positive” outlook on life, how Camus believed that the search for meaning was the problem, and that “life” is found in coming to grips with the absurdity of life. I still can’t grasp this. Sure, I can imagine living for today, for the feelings, but I cannot see how this is better than the alternative.
Strange, what Solomon wrote…
I said to myself concerning the sons of men, “God has surely tested them in order for them to see that they are but beasts (Eccl 3:18, NAS).
