Embracing absurdity

If I ever have enough disposable income to pay the extra fee for a personalized license plate, I would want that plate to say: ABSURD. I think that would be a cool word to have, and I like it because it has sort of a "mundane" meaning (aren't personalized plates a little absurd?) and a deeper, more "philosophical" meaning (isn't human existence a little absurd?).

Absurdity. Get used to it. Because the dominant competing paradigm just doesn't make a lot of sense. That paradigm--at least the more extreme version--proposes that life has inherent meaning because God has a plan for you. Now, how we are supposed to DETERMINE what that "plan" involves is certainly elusive--at best, we can maybe "look at the signs" and make inferences. But in the end, the plan is almost impossible to discern, unless one regards every moment in life as de facto evidence of a "plan." (I got an "A" in math? God must want me to be a math teacher! I vomited after eating a porterhouse? God must want me to be a vegetarian! The guys in the locker room love my ballads in the shower? God must want me to be a singer! There is no end to such speculation.)

Equally problematic to me are the many things in life that make no sense whatsoever and couldn't possibly be part of a plan by any loving, omniscient being. This week, a lovely actress, Natasha Richardson, died after a skiing accident, an accident that seemed relatively innocuous at first. So what part of the "plan" was that? Was it a plan for Natasha? A message to her husband, actor Liam Neeson? A message to the couple's two young sons? If God's plan for Natasha was to have her die an untimely death at the age of 45, in the peak of her life, leaving a husband and two sons to grieve, I'd say that ain't much of a plan. I think I could do better.

And if all that wasn't sufficiently problematic, how can life really HAVE any meaning if everything is already planned? If all I am doing is trying to "follow God's plan," then I am essentially a kind of marionette or puppet, doing what God has already determined I should be doing in the first place--and what kind of life is that? And again, how do I even know if I'm "doing it right" to begin with? And where does "free will" come in? Do I necessarily have to agree with God's plan? As long as I'm not hurting anyone else, can't I have my OWN plan? I just think there are too many problems with the "plan" idea, whether that plan is micromanaging our lives or merely involves painting the canvas with a broader brush.

Absurdity. Accept it. Embrace it. It's really not so bad once you get used to it. (Keep chanting this with John Lennon's song "Imagine" playing in the background.) An absurd view of the world makes life all at once clearer, sweeter, more liberating, more amusing, more bizarre, and more tragic. But there is in the end no totally satisfactory answer to the dilemmas of human existence. Even the concept of absurdity is, well, a little absurd.