Cosmic Loneliness and Happiness

"After a short, productive explosion of early activity, the universe has begun its long mope towards oblivion. To the extent that anything was ever important, it won’t be. Time, space, energy, matter—all gone.
What is to be done?
 Just the fact that you are alive now is a novelty, a signal that vanishes against the vast noise of cosmic space. You think cosmic spacetime cares whether you buy an iPad Mini or a Kindle Fire? It does not, my friend. Absurdity is born in this confrontation between your need for reason and the unreasonable silence of the universe. Camus understood astrophysics better than any of these guys."

     I sent this article to a good friend and she responded in an unusual way but each has their own manner. It can be so colorful to live with an open mind in a world where we can taste freely of the minds of others. From my friend:  

     

     "Each month I have these fluctuations in my hormones, such magic! (read with sarcastic tone) 

Actually just before "Aunt Flo" comes to visit I have a very dark outlook at life. Quite like The End of the Universe email you recently sent. It is the absurdity that digs its nails into my mind and make my skin itch. So it seems very clear to me that nothing has lasting meaning. And really only the present is anything at all. But we also have a conscience and we think about the past and how the present will tilt the future. So when I feel like death is as easy as life I get snapped back in by memory and thoughts of the future despite I feel that this is the only moment. Would I leave my husband and children and mother to be without me because I see absurdity? Should I care that I eat healthy so I can feel good in the long run? Should I run a marathon or sit on the couch?

So when it comes right down to it, it is all about how I feel. And feeling love is better than anything else, even better than peanut butter cup Ben & Jerry's. Feeling love is about connecting and acceptance. Eating ice cream is finite."

I responded to her:

     "While I was reading your PMS oration and the effect hormones have on women I realized something. The monthly hormone fluctuations in women give females an existential advantage. Hormones racing through the gates and alleys of the bloodstream have the capacity shake you out of the doldrums,,, cyclically,, and then return you to earth again. Men, however, change hormonally when they see a fleshy ass or feel a threat to their manhood. Fuck it or fight it.The hormones in men are like blinders and those in women jolt them out of the quotidien. Look some hormones prompted you to ask questions about your condition. Men, on the other hand, aren't converting injections of testosterone into self awareness.  
     The human condition hovers between making sense in one's own twisted way or being consumed by death. This is the crux of existence. If one cannot use curiosity and love as tools to help unlock meaning,,, well then you are committing slow suicide." 

I also sent the initial article to my brother and he responded: 

"That's it I'm jumping off. But actually a full day of crabbing with the grandkids today made it good."  

I responded:
     So much for impending doom and unbearable cosmic loneliness. A few kids and some blue crabs is enough. Carpe Diem your way to happiness,, leave that creeping nihilism behind. We have two choices. We can look to the heavens and be overwhelmed with grief or invent constellations. However, why do we buy insurance? We are an insufferably egoistic species. 
    I think Camus was right,, as always. The human condition hovers between making sense in one's own twisted way or being consumed by death. However being conscious of our absurd existence and learning how to live with it may be the only truth worth looking for. 
     In "A Happy Death by Camus "there are various quotes,, in fact almost every line in the book could be a quote. Put together and they become a code for living:

“You see, Mersualt, all the misery and cruelty of our civilisation can be measured by this one stupid axiom: happy nations have no history.”
 
“I feel like getting married, or committing suicide, or subscribing to L'Illustration. Something desperate, you know.”

“He realized now that to be afraid of this death he was staring at with animal terror meant to be afraid of life. Fear of dying justified a limitless attachment to what is alive in man. And all those who had not made the gestures necessary to live their lives, all those who feared and exalted impotence— they were afraid of death because of the sanction it gave to a life in which they had not been involved. They had not lived enough, never having lived at all. And death was a kind of gesture, forever withholding water from the traveler vainly seeking to slake his thirst. But for the others, it was the fatal and tender gesture that erases and denies, smiling at gratitude as at rebellion.”

“On good days, if you trust life, life has to answer you.”

“Believe me there is no such thing as great suffering, great regret, great memory....everything is forgotten, even a great love. That's what's sad about life, and also what's wonderful about it. There is only a way of looking at things, a way that comes to you every once in a while. That's why it's good to have had love in your life after all, to have had an unhappy passion- it gives you an alibi for the vague despairs we all suffer from.”

“He discovered the cruel paradox by which we always decieve ourselves twice about the people we love-first to their advantage, then to their disadvantage”

“You make the mistake of thinking you have to choose, that you have to do what you want, that there are conditions for happiness. What matters- all that matters, really- is the will to happiness, a kind of enormous, ever present consciousness. The rest- women, art, success- is nothing but excuses. A canvas waiting for our embroideries.”

"Live to the point of tears".