A Ridiculous Dream
When Albert Camus composed his classic essay The Myth of
Sisyphus, he attempted to portray the overall absurdity of human existence.
That most wretched of labors — to push, with all one’s strength, a boulder
named human civilization up to the summit of a mountain, only to watch it roll
down again for all eternity — could only be the peculiar task of mankind.
Stranger still, he dared to compare it with the pursuit of knowledge, and even
ennobled it with the romanticism of survival against odds. In doing so, he
hurled down the grand conservative ideal of a harmonious cosmos from its
heavenly pedestal onto the coarse pavement of the street. Only man could
achieve such a desecration. For there exists no creature more terrifying than
man himself.
This is the comic, almost grotesque, side of human existence — what philosophy calls existentialism. It lies at the very center of speculative thought. To an otherworldly observer, how laughable it must seem that, knowing full well we are destined to die, we still invest such solemn weight in the trivial events of our daily lives. True, we console ourselves with the hope of an afterlife. Yet what shape will that other life take? An eternal paradise or a blazing hell? Or perhaps rebirth, unending? By the time we finish pondering such questions, life itself has slipped away. And then we recall: from the very first flicker of consciousness to the final gasp of breath, the same question has stalked us — that I shall live forever, immortal, until that single instant just before death when disbelief collapses and the cosmos proves itself indifferent to the little theater inside my skull.
Every step we take in the battle of life is nothing but a whistle at the edge of the graveyard. Confidence is precious to us, for expectation stretches its wings wide before us. Yet nothing is worse than falling ill in this world, for human life is above all a life of the flesh. The ceaseless drive to exhibit oneself, to be chosen as superior, to perform endlessly before others — all this is fueled by the promise of future happiness. Yet this promise is nothing but the call of death itself, disguised since birth as a siren-song of life. Whatever else we may believe, the bare truth remains: today you are born, tomorrow you shall die. Every self-serving step you take merely proves, in absurd fashion, the futility of the enterprise.
No matter how deep your faith, no one can truly deny that no proof of afterlife exists. Then why does crime not freely roam the streets without restraint? What is man afraid of? Does he put the needs of others before his own? Not quite — he allows others to live so that he himself may not be destroyed. Why, then, does the overwhelming majority among us behave so absurdly each day, when life guarantees only this: that we shall be here for a brief flicker of time, and most of us shall never attain what we truly desire? Why, then, obey such strict rules? Dostoevsky, in his tale The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, submitted his answer to this very riddle.
That story is indeed an extended meditation on isolation — an artistic mode none conceived more profoundly than Dostoevsky. The alienation begins with the narrator’s confession: “I have always been ridiculous, and I know it.” Clearly, he is measuring himself against other men. Yet deeper still is his intuition that humanity itself may be compared against brute instinct. For as far as we know, man is the only creature aware of his final destiny. This is what makes him infinitely more absurd than any beast. That very knowledge of his own destruction is the heart of existential thought. The ridiculous man questions the legitimacy and purpose of existence itself, and thereby seems rude, defiant, even angry. From this spiritual void he slides into the realm of the absurd. Listening to his companions argue, he realizes they have no notion of what they debate. He alone, attaching himself to their confusion, fancies the matter grand — for the speakers cannot even name the true problem. Though Dostoevsky wrote in the nineteenth century, the alienation he sketched still feels like the very condition of modern life. If modern man were not so estranged from reality, why would so many squander themselves on counterfeit entertainments?
The tale itself was conceived in the age when the Industrial Revolution, at a frightening pace, was dehumanizing society. The ridiculous man found himself before a crisis: he confessed that he possessed no evidence his life was worth living. Thus, he fell into despair, consumed entirely by alienation. At that very moment, a little girl appeared, begging him to save a stranger’s life. Should he respond? Should he turn his face once more toward humanity? That a man so steeped in solitude could yet feel pain and compassion for his fellow human seemed at first incredible. And yet, he refused to intervene. In his deepest darkness of despair, the ridiculous man does something still more ridiculous — a turn the reader scarcely anticipates.
He came to believe that his vision mirrored mankind’s downfall. In his philosophy lay a utopia without shame, war, envy, or malice — a world where the individual spirit wandered free. This was an idealism, yes, but it was also the logical consequence of his perspective. For he was guilty of corrupting himself with knowledge. Plainly, he was no angel. But with knowledge came those artificial constructs we call morality — not a natural birthright, but a distortion that seduced him into believing he had declined from some nobler state. Lacking knowledge, men are no more than savages; animals, following instinct, live untroubled by such contradictions. But the ridiculous man, introducing knowledge, corrupted them; enslaved by instinct, he worshiped humanity with a double tongue. What hypocrisy! And yet in doing so, he introduced the world to humanity itself. Torn between the thirst for rebirth and the inability to renounce the comforts of indulgence, he wept. To him, poverty outside pleasure seemed both sorrowful and noble. His duplicity, too, was born of knowledge.
Why, then, is knowledge forbidden? Why must heaven remain barred until knowledge is renounced? What is so flawed in knowledge? Through history, knowledge has always borne a dual face. Knowledge harnesses the atom to light cities with thousands of watts, but also to erase millions in a single flash. The ridiculous man realizes knowledge is the greater force of life. One cannot live with mere instinct or choice. One must knock at heaven’s door, for knowledge alone cannot deliver freedom. Yet the consciousness that knowledge brings — the very jewel of existence — also becomes the most terrifying demon, urging man toward monstrous devouring. Morality, in the end, offers no salvation; it does not rescue man from misery, only promises him peace in the afterlife.
When no guarantee of happiness exists, what can be more absurd than to choose morality as the path of life? Mimicking the Bible, the ridiculous man declares: “The essential thing is to love others as oneself.” But of what use is this? He even pledges: “Consider that paradise will never arrive, and yet I shall continue to preach its coming.”
This, in truth, is the existential choice. It is better to choose morality — but then, must I renounce happiness? The ridiculous man questions the validity of expectations, estranged from the world and indifferent to its consolations. Recall: from the beginning, he saw himself as ridiculous. Educated but never wise, he confessed: “The more I learned, the better I understood that I was ridiculous.” A fracture runs always through him. Always apart from others, his alienation became the mark of his being. A tragic hero must always be isolated, for he harbors within him urgent questions about reality. His very survival demanded proof of purpose. This stubbornness gave his detachment the aura of inevitability, of truth. Why, then, could he not live a simple life like others? Why did so many refuse to accept reality as given? The ridiculous man perceived these contradictions, and so men called him mad. But for thousands of years, millions have asked the same questions. History does not rewrite reality; reality itself is nothing but a relative continuum. Knowledge appears to be the key to happiness. But the ridiculous man discovers it to be a conjurer’s trick. For the world’s promise — that by being good one shall taste true joy — is an illusion. Ideals and moral walls crumble unceasingly. There is no morality as such; only a contrivance by which we cage the injustices of the world.
Without poetic justice, morality is meaningless. Yet poetic justice is never realistic. Knowledge does not judge; it merely grants a kind of peace — but a peace without hope. Perhaps the ridiculous man is mad, for he has seen that the essence of happiness lies in inactive knowledge, a knowledge that may at any moment discard morality. When the good and the evil alike share the same end, when death stands as the final equalizer, and no proof exists that choosing evil is worse or better than choosing good, then morality itself appears absurd as a necessary element of existence. One may be good, evil, or indifferent, and life goes on. Why then must one be good? Why must one choose a moral life? Is this not the height of absurdity? And yet, each of us may choose this path.
The ants march in a row. Kill a few midway, and the rest continue their pace, undisturbed. None look back to see whether the dead are buried, whether they ascended to heaven. For the truth lies only in the act of marching. Who marched, for what purpose, why, where to, who fell, whether those who died bore sins, whether they suffered — all such questions of knowledge are irrelevant. To the ignorant, knowledge is neither action nor reaction, neither cause nor effect. The path itself is called knowledge. To it, the questions What? Why? Where? When? How? are meaningless. The quest for knowledge is, in this sense too, profoundly ridiculous.
This is the comic, almost grotesque, side of human existence — what philosophy calls existentialism. It lies at the very center of speculative thought. To an otherworldly observer, how laughable it must seem that, knowing full well we are destined to die, we still invest such solemn weight in the trivial events of our daily lives. True, we console ourselves with the hope of an afterlife. Yet what shape will that other life take? An eternal paradise or a blazing hell? Or perhaps rebirth, unending? By the time we finish pondering such questions, life itself has slipped away. And then we recall: from the very first flicker of consciousness to the final gasp of breath, the same question has stalked us — that I shall live forever, immortal, until that single instant just before death when disbelief collapses and the cosmos proves itself indifferent to the little theater inside my skull.
Every step we take in the battle of life is nothing but a whistle at the edge of the graveyard. Confidence is precious to us, for expectation stretches its wings wide before us. Yet nothing is worse than falling ill in this world, for human life is above all a life of the flesh. The ceaseless drive to exhibit oneself, to be chosen as superior, to perform endlessly before others — all this is fueled by the promise of future happiness. Yet this promise is nothing but the call of death itself, disguised since birth as a siren-song of life. Whatever else we may believe, the bare truth remains: today you are born, tomorrow you shall die. Every self-serving step you take merely proves, in absurd fashion, the futility of the enterprise.
No matter how deep your faith, no one can truly deny that no proof of afterlife exists. Then why does crime not freely roam the streets without restraint? What is man afraid of? Does he put the needs of others before his own? Not quite — he allows others to live so that he himself may not be destroyed. Why, then, does the overwhelming majority among us behave so absurdly each day, when life guarantees only this: that we shall be here for a brief flicker of time, and most of us shall never attain what we truly desire? Why, then, obey such strict rules? Dostoevsky, in his tale The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, submitted his answer to this very riddle.
That story is indeed an extended meditation on isolation — an artistic mode none conceived more profoundly than Dostoevsky. The alienation begins with the narrator’s confession: “I have always been ridiculous, and I know it.” Clearly, he is measuring himself against other men. Yet deeper still is his intuition that humanity itself may be compared against brute instinct. For as far as we know, man is the only creature aware of his final destiny. This is what makes him infinitely more absurd than any beast. That very knowledge of his own destruction is the heart of existential thought. The ridiculous man questions the legitimacy and purpose of existence itself, and thereby seems rude, defiant, even angry. From this spiritual void he slides into the realm of the absurd. Listening to his companions argue, he realizes they have no notion of what they debate. He alone, attaching himself to their confusion, fancies the matter grand — for the speakers cannot even name the true problem. Though Dostoevsky wrote in the nineteenth century, the alienation he sketched still feels like the very condition of modern life. If modern man were not so estranged from reality, why would so many squander themselves on counterfeit entertainments?
The tale itself was conceived in the age when the Industrial Revolution, at a frightening pace, was dehumanizing society. The ridiculous man found himself before a crisis: he confessed that he possessed no evidence his life was worth living. Thus, he fell into despair, consumed entirely by alienation. At that very moment, a little girl appeared, begging him to save a stranger’s life. Should he respond? Should he turn his face once more toward humanity? That a man so steeped in solitude could yet feel pain and compassion for his fellow human seemed at first incredible. And yet, he refused to intervene. In his deepest darkness of despair, the ridiculous man does something still more ridiculous — a turn the reader scarcely anticipates.
He came to believe that his vision mirrored mankind’s downfall. In his philosophy lay a utopia without shame, war, envy, or malice — a world where the individual spirit wandered free. This was an idealism, yes, but it was also the logical consequence of his perspective. For he was guilty of corrupting himself with knowledge. Plainly, he was no angel. But with knowledge came those artificial constructs we call morality — not a natural birthright, but a distortion that seduced him into believing he had declined from some nobler state. Lacking knowledge, men are no more than savages; animals, following instinct, live untroubled by such contradictions. But the ridiculous man, introducing knowledge, corrupted them; enslaved by instinct, he worshiped humanity with a double tongue. What hypocrisy! And yet in doing so, he introduced the world to humanity itself. Torn between the thirst for rebirth and the inability to renounce the comforts of indulgence, he wept. To him, poverty outside pleasure seemed both sorrowful and noble. His duplicity, too, was born of knowledge.
Why, then, is knowledge forbidden? Why must heaven remain barred until knowledge is renounced? What is so flawed in knowledge? Through history, knowledge has always borne a dual face. Knowledge harnesses the atom to light cities with thousands of watts, but also to erase millions in a single flash. The ridiculous man realizes knowledge is the greater force of life. One cannot live with mere instinct or choice. One must knock at heaven’s door, for knowledge alone cannot deliver freedom. Yet the consciousness that knowledge brings — the very jewel of existence — also becomes the most terrifying demon, urging man toward monstrous devouring. Morality, in the end, offers no salvation; it does not rescue man from misery, only promises him peace in the afterlife.
When no guarantee of happiness exists, what can be more absurd than to choose morality as the path of life? Mimicking the Bible, the ridiculous man declares: “The essential thing is to love others as oneself.” But of what use is this? He even pledges: “Consider that paradise will never arrive, and yet I shall continue to preach its coming.”
This, in truth, is the existential choice. It is better to choose morality — but then, must I renounce happiness? The ridiculous man questions the validity of expectations, estranged from the world and indifferent to its consolations. Recall: from the beginning, he saw himself as ridiculous. Educated but never wise, he confessed: “The more I learned, the better I understood that I was ridiculous.” A fracture runs always through him. Always apart from others, his alienation became the mark of his being. A tragic hero must always be isolated, for he harbors within him urgent questions about reality. His very survival demanded proof of purpose. This stubbornness gave his detachment the aura of inevitability, of truth. Why, then, could he not live a simple life like others? Why did so many refuse to accept reality as given? The ridiculous man perceived these contradictions, and so men called him mad. But for thousands of years, millions have asked the same questions. History does not rewrite reality; reality itself is nothing but a relative continuum. Knowledge appears to be the key to happiness. But the ridiculous man discovers it to be a conjurer’s trick. For the world’s promise — that by being good one shall taste true joy — is an illusion. Ideals and moral walls crumble unceasingly. There is no morality as such; only a contrivance by which we cage the injustices of the world.
Without poetic justice, morality is meaningless. Yet poetic justice is never realistic. Knowledge does not judge; it merely grants a kind of peace — but a peace without hope. Perhaps the ridiculous man is mad, for he has seen that the essence of happiness lies in inactive knowledge, a knowledge that may at any moment discard morality. When the good and the evil alike share the same end, when death stands as the final equalizer, and no proof exists that choosing evil is worse or better than choosing good, then morality itself appears absurd as a necessary element of existence. One may be good, evil, or indifferent, and life goes on. Why then must one be good? Why must one choose a moral life? Is this not the height of absurdity? And yet, each of us may choose this path.
The ants march in a row. Kill a few midway, and the rest continue their pace, undisturbed. None look back to see whether the dead are buried, whether they ascended to heaven. For the truth lies only in the act of marching. Who marched, for what purpose, why, where to, who fell, whether those who died bore sins, whether they suffered — all such questions of knowledge are irrelevant. To the ignorant, knowledge is neither action nor reaction, neither cause nor effect. The path itself is called knowledge. To it, the questions What? Why? Where? When? How? are meaningless. The quest for knowledge is, in this sense too, profoundly ridiculous.
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