The Age of Absurdity: Why Modern Life Makes it Hard to Be Happy (2010) (30 page)

Buzz had many sources of grievance, for instance the unflattering underwear supplied by NASA. When he got back to earth after coming close to death on the moon, his first words to his wife were, ‘Joan, would you bring me some Jockey shorts tomorrow morning?’
301
And, as a consequence of NASA’s three-day debriefing, the astronauts missed the media storm, which Buzz presciently understood to be the real event.

The media excitement was unprecedented. A Reverend Terence Mangan published detailed architectural plans for a church on the moon and the Hilton hotel group considered building an underground moon resort (based on a prediction that the moon would soon be the most popular honeymoon destination),
302
while the Nepalese nation was outraged at the violation of the resting place of the souls of the departed and the Union of Persian Storytellers believed that storytelling would never be the same again.

And the Apollo photographs revealed for the first time the insignificance of the earth – a tiny marble lost in an infinity of black. On the moon Armstrong discovered that he could eclipse earth merely by raising his thumb. ‘Did it make you feel really big?’ he was asked. ‘No, it made me feel really small.’
303

Armstrong remained stable after going to the moon but Buzz Aldrin sank into alcoholism and depression.

Depression is often the fate of the modern personality – greedy, attention-hungry and resentful, always convinced of deserving more, always haunted by the possibility of missing something better somewhere else, always smarting at lack of recognition and always dissatisfied. It is necessary to find again the classical courage and humility of Sisyphus who does not demand gratification but knows how to turn to advantage whatever the gods have decreed, and how to make every activity its own reward. Sisyphus is happy with the absurdity and insignificance of constantly pushing a rock up a hill.

Of course, he grumbles now and then. The rock could have been less jagged and the hill less steep. On the other hand, rock and hill could each have been more harsh. And there is much to be grateful for. Nothing in his sentence obliges him to use a particular path and there is an infinity of paths to match the eternity of the task. So, even as he seeks out the perfect way, he hopes secretly never to find it. Nor is he forbidden sideways motion, when the rock could almost be said to roll itself. And if it all gets too much he can appear to lose footing or grip and let the rock roll back down. Then the heavens will darken and crackle with divine displeasure – but Sisyphus can merely shrug and display empty, roughened palms.

Frequently he pretends to be stuck and turns his back to the rock, apparently to push harder – but really rock and man are supporting each other. At such times he falls into a reverie, often remembering his wife and developing a tender erection. Often, too, he will attack the rock with sudden force, propelling it all the way to the summit in a single, shrieking, manic rush. The gods hate such insolence – but what can they do? And, of course, there is the moment of release on the summit, always anticipated and, if never quite as rapturous as the promise, still a moment to savour. Is there any reason for him to descend as precipitately as the rock? None whatever. He strolls down with provocative insouciance by varying zigzag routes. How the gods glower in impotent wrath! This task, supposedly changeless, in fact has infinite variation.

Even if all variation were forbidden, there would still be his deepening relationship with the rock. As his hands come to know every outcrop and hollow, the rock seems to grow more responsive, more understanding, more cooperative. And who would have believed that frail human hands could smooth away such jaggedness? Of course, there are bad moments when the rock is obdurately unmoving and Sisyphus curses and even strikes it. But, at other times, the rock is blithe, even skittish, rolling easily and playfully, as though teasing him. At these times his touch is a warm, light caress.

All this the gods observe in growing disapproval. They, too, can be cunning and subtle. One day, they say, ‘Sisyphus, we have watched your ingeniously varied labours with increasing admiration. And we have decided to ease your heavy burden. Here is a much better rock.’ Stupefied, Sisyphus looks back down to see a rock considerably smaller and so smooth and spherical he can almost feel its curves fitting his hands as it rolls effortlessly up the hill. He is unable to speak. The gods wait, in malign assurance, and then add, not without satisfaction, ‘Did you believe that eternal hard labour would set you free? No man may escape the agony of choice.’ Still Sisyphus does not reply. Now his rock feels heavier, a deadweight, burdened suddenly by its awkwardness, imperfection and bulk. Then, all at once, the glory of the human creature – contrariness – floods his soul with intoxicating vinegar and piss. He can defy. He can refuse. He can say no. Or rather, in arrogance and humility, rebellion and acceptance, absurdity and happiness, with a loving slap, ‘This is my rock.’

I
would like to thank Jennifer lies for giving me the original idea for this book, Emily McLaughlin for advice on quotations, Jennifer Christie, Kerri Sharp, and Kirstie Addis for many invaluable suggestions and my wife, Martina, also a keen student of absurdity, for much crucial research.

And I would like to express my gratitude to an institution – Camden Council Libraries. There are frequent complaints nowadays about libraries failing to stock new books but Camden libraries had almost all the recent books I needed and, when I requested arcane volumes from the Reserve Stock, library staff gladly trudged down to the vaults to fetch them. This is a public service to cherish.

1
Derek Mahon,
The Yellow Book
, Gallery Press, 1997

2
Quoted from
The New York Times
in the
Observer
, 17 May 2009

3
Jean-Jacques Rousseau,
Collected Writings of Rousseau
, University of New England Press, 1994

4
Hannah Arendt,
The Human Condition
, University of Chicago Press, 1958

5
John Stuart Mill,
Autobiography
, Penguin, 1987

6
Gustave Flaubert,
Extraits de la Correspondance
, Editions du Seuil, 1963

7
ibid.

8
Immanuel Kant,
Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals
, Hackett, 1981

9
Friedrich Nietzsche,
Also Spracb Zarathustra
, Ernst Schmeitzner, 1885

10
Sally Brampton,
Shoot the Damn Dog
, Bloomsbury, 2008

11
Erich Fromm,
The Fear of Freedom
, Routledge, 1942

12
Quoted in Henri Troyat,
Tolstoy
, Doubleday, 1967

13
Inge Kjaergaard, ‘Advertising to the Brain’,
Focus
Denmark, 2008

14
Quoted in Barry Schwartz,
The Paradox Of Choice: Why More is Less
, HarperCollins, 2004

15
Martin Lindstrom,
Buyology-. How Everything We Believe About Why We Buy is Wrong
, Random House Business Books, 2009

16
Plato,
Pbaedrus
from John M. Cooper and D.S. Hutchinson (eds.),
Plato: Complete Works
, Hackett, 1997

17
Marcus Aurelius,
Meditations
, Penguin, 1964

18
Quoted in Robert Bly,
The Sibling Society
, Hamish Hamilton, 1996

19
Quoted in Karen Armstrong,
Buddha
, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000

20
Sigmund Freud,
Collected Papers
, Hogarth Press, 1970

21
Juan Mascaro (trans.),
The Dhammapada
, Penguin, 1973

22
Quoted in Karl Jaspers,
Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus: the paradigmatic individuals
, Harvest, 1966

23
Quoted in Armstrong, (2000) op. cit.

24
Quoted in Jaspers, op. cit.

25
ibid.

26
The statistics are in John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge,
God Is Back How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World
, Allen Lane, 2009

27
Spinoza,
Ethics
, Hafner Publishing, 1966

28
ibid.

29
ibid.

30
ibid.

31
Spinoza,
Ethics
, Everyman, 1993

32
Quoted in Antonio R. Damasio,
Looking for Spinoza
, Vintage, 2004

33
Quoted in Henri F. Ellenberger,
The Discovery of the Unconscious
, Penguin, 1970

34
Arthur Schopenhauer,
The World as Will and Idea
, Dent, 2004

35
Arthur Schopenhauer,
Essays and Aphorisms
, Penguin, 1970

36
Nietzsche, (1885) op. cit.

37
ibid.

38
ibid.

39
ibid.

40
ibid.

41
ibid.

42
Joseph LeDoux,
The Emotional Brain
, Simon & Schuster, 1996

43
Kenneth M. Heilman,
Matter of Mind: A Neurologist’s View of Brain-Behavior Relationships
, Oxford University Press, 2002

44
J. Cohen
et al
, ‘Separate Neural Systems Value Immediate and Delayed Monetary Rewards’,
Science
, 306, 2004

45
Quoted in Erich Fromm,
Marx’s Concept of Man
, Ungar, 1961

46
Fiona Macdonald, ‘A Truly Captive Audience’,
Metro
, 4 February 2009. The quote is from Felix Paus, founder of Videogames Adventure Services. Another company offering similar services is Spy Games. The websites are
www.semagoediv.com
and
www.spy-games.com

47
Survey quoted in
The New York Times
, 28 October 2007

48
Julian Baggini,
Complaint: From Minor Moans to Principled Protest
, Profile, 2008

49
For instance,
www.unboxing.com

50
Alain de Botton,
The Art of Travel
, Random House, 2004

51
David Foster Wallace,
A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
, Abacus, 1998

52
This tendency was first identified by Erich Fromm, who defined it as the ‘marketing orientation’, the obligation to market oneself as another commodity: ‘since success depends largely on how one sells one’s personality, one experiences oneself as a commodity or rather simultaneously as the seller and the commodity to be sold. A person is not concerned with his life and happiness, but with becoming saleable.’ In Erich Fromm,
Man For Himself
, Routledge, 1949

53
The three who have found these innovative ways to fame and fortune are William Burroughs, Damien Hirst and Ozzy Osbourne

54
Seneca,
Moral Essays
, Loeb Classical Library, 1989

55
Aurelius, op. cit.

56
Seneca,
Moral Essays
, Loeb Classical Library, 1989

57
ibid.

58
ibid.

59
Aurelius, op. cit.

60
ibid.

61
Epictetus,
The Discourses
, Loeb Classical Library, 1989

62
Aurelius, op. cit.

63
Matthew 10:34

64
Matthew 7:28

65
Matthew 12:11

66
Matthew 22:21

67
Fromm, (1942) op. cit.

68
Jean-Paul Sartre,
Being and Nothingness
, Routledge, 2003

69
Søren Kierkegaard,
The Sickness Unto Death
, Princeton University Press, 1951

70
Jean-Paul Sartre,
Being and Nothingness
, Philosophical Library, 1956

71
Sartre, (2003) op. cit.

72
Albert Camus,
The Myth of Sisyphus
, Penguin Classics, 2000

73
ibid.

74
Samuel Beckett,
Happy Days
, Faber, 1963

75
Jonathan Haidt,
The Happiness Hypothesis
, Heinemann, 2006

76
Nicholas Epley & David Dunning, ‘Feeling holier than thou’,
Journal of Personal and Social Psychology
, 79, 2000

77
For instance, Richard Layard,
Happiness: Lessons Prom a New Science
, Penguin, 2005

78
Walter Mischel
et al
., ‘Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions’,
Developmental Psychology
, 26, 1990

79
Richard Easterlin, ‘Explaining Happiness’,
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
, 100, 2003

80
Schopenhauer, (2004) op. cit.

81
Leon Festinger,
A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance
, Stanford University Press, 1957

82
Quoted in Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson,
Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts
, Pinter & Martin, 2008

83
This statistic is hard to believe but it is quoted in two scrupulously researched books – Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson,
Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts
, Pinter & Martin, 2008; and Francis Wheen,
How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World
, HarperPerennial, 2004

84
Susan A. Clancy,
Abducted: How People Come To Believe They Were Abducted By Aliens
, Harvard University Press, 2005