A few days ago, I responded to a post that said:
“The human obsession with purpose is merely a distraction from the absurdity of existence.”
It’s the kind of line I would normally nod at, maybe repost, maybe move on. But something in me replied—not with theory, but with a sliver of lived philosophy. What followed surprised me.
Someone asked me a simple question in response:
“Why Absurdism?”
I answered honestly, and I didn’t expect it to matter much. But over the next few days, people began responding. Publicly, privately. Thanking me. Telling me it opened something in them. And strangely, it opened something in me, too.
So I’m archiving the moment here. Not to make it bigger than it is, but because it’s exactly the kind of “small sacred” I never want to scroll past and forget. This is what I wrote.
The Exchange
Me:
“Once you accept determinism, the joy of absurdism can arise.”
Them:
“Why absurdism?”
My Response:
As someone who leans fully into determinism, I don’t think I get to “do” anything with the sadness so much as I get to watch it do me. There’s a strange liberation in that—like realizing you’re not driving the car, but you can still enjoy the scenery.
The only escape hatch I’ve found is through absurdism: laughing at the fact that we’re all caught in a play we didn’t audition for, reading scripts we didn’t write, while thinking we’re improvising. That laughter isn’t just relief—it’s rebellion. It’s the only non-delusional freedom I know.
Sometimes the sadness feels like weather—inevitable, passing, larger than me. And sometimes it’s a mirror, showing me what I’ve been clinging to that never belonged to me in the first place.
So maybe what I do with the sadness is this:
I nod to it. I let it sit beside me.
And if it gets too loud, I try to laugh—not to dismiss it,
but to remind it that I see through the script too.
And Then the Comments Came
Just a few examples, shared with care:
“Thank you for this.”
“Beautiful.”
“For lack of other words, I’ll just say that was a beautiful read. It really encapsulates how I’m feeling about ‘existence,’ about myself, at this later age.”
“Kinda opened me up to a new dimension.”
Final Reflection
We never know what will land.
A passing question. A thoughtful line. A quiet laugh in the dark.
And suddenly we are not so alone.
I didn’t plan to write anything meaningful that day. I was just being honest. But the absurd thing is: maybe that’s exactly what meaning is—not something we build or discover, but something that emerges in the space between resonance.
So if you’re reading this, and you’re tired of the play, or confused by the script—know this:
You can still laugh. You’re allowed to see through it.
And sometimes, that’s more than enough.