This is the kind of thought that only rich and successful people can have.
If you're working every day in a coal mine so you can feed your children otherwise they will go hungry, then you don't have these kind of thoughts.
Similarly, if you're fighting in a war so your family isn't raped or murdered then you don't have these kind of thoughts either.
Basically, you're lucky if you live in a situation that gives you the leisure and time to sit around and think about life being a farce. Probably he should be sitting around thinking, "boy, i'm so lucky I get to sit in this nice coffeeshop with no reason to work, no threat to my life, just chilling, so I can ponder on what a farce life is"
Edit: Because some people start criticising my comment, here's an addition:
How many people who were living in the 1700s do you think sat around thinking life is a farce?
Ponder on that question. Out of everyone living in the world today, how many people do you think sit around thinking life is a farce, who are those people? Why do you think they are thinking this?
I think it's an important question to ask and think about. It's saying something about our society, way of life, way of seeing the world.
In my opinion, life is for living, being with people, engaging in the world, taking action, connecting with people, and giving back. When you stop living, engaging with the world, and spend too much time alone, you start thinking this way.
I think if Bob Odenkirk lived on a community farm where everyone had to work together to survive he would be far happier and think life is far more meaningful.
> How many people who were living in the 1700s do you think sat around thinking life is a farce?
The name for this view of the universe is "absurdism". It was first espoused, as far as I can tell, when the discourse of Qohelet was recorded in the book of Ecclesiastes. So yes, they had it in the 1700's although perhaps not by that name.
> If you're working every day in a coal mine so you can feed your children otherwise they will go hungry, then you don't have these kind of thoughts.
This is almost the opposite of the truth. Those with careers that do not occupy their minds do not sit around with their brains idling and empty all day. They spend much of that time thinking about exactly this sort of thing.
Note, I didn't say "no people" thought this way. Just that very, very few people thought this way, which is absolutely accurate.
Unless you thought most people in the 1700s were sat around smoking cigarettes in cafes discussing the absurdism of life?
I suspect it to be far less rare than you think. Literally every human at some point in their life asks "What is the purpose of my existence?". They are then faced with some variation on "to be or not to be." It is not the exclusive domain of the idle and the educated, they're just the ones who write about it. It's a universal condition, and effects those without leisure equally. If that weren't true religion would not have been the driving force behind much of civilizations rise. Even the overworked and overwrought look for answers. Perhaps ESPECIALLY the overworked and overwrought. So maybe they did not sit about in cafe's discussing it, they mined coal while thinking it quietly to themselves or shouted it in crowded bars after work when they'd had a bit too much to drink.
Hell, I was a teenager working at Taco Bell when I first read Camus' "The Myth of Sisyphus". Well before that though many a bean burrito were handed out the window while I considered the absurdity of life. Perhaps my thinking wasn't as nuanced as it would later come to be, but the concepts occurred to me quite naturally.
I believe he addresses this point:
> There’s no question that the security that you feel from not being afraid of a health issue or housing is a great comfort and helps you to be more at peace with life. It’s just not as much help as you think it should be.
Already ranted about comments like yours: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47919820
It's shows true ignorance about what happiness is and where it's found. You can probably find more smiles and hope for the future in the Ukrainian trenches than reading comments from Silicon Valley workers making $150k a year.
I mean, do you guys even know Buddhism any more? It was such a hip thing in the 70s over there.
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player That struts and frets his hour upon the stage And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing
-William Shakespeare
Miners had elevated suicide rates and alcoholism rates. And when you read stories of families from such environments, similar thoughts were present. Yes, they did had these kind of thoughts. It is not just perfectly possible to be poor hard worker with family and have depression or missing meaning of life, but entirely common.
Miners may have had elevated suicide rates or alcoholism, but are you telling me they sat around thinking life is a meaningless farce?
Miners suffered from hideous diseases due to breathing in huge amounts of toxic chemicals, so yes, that resulted in elevated risk of suicide and alcoholism.
But were they really sitting around discussing absurdism, nihilism, life being a farce? This sort of thinking is really much more of a modern phenomenon, a privilege of the rich and educated with lots of free time.
So you're saying that life isn't a farce? Or that it is, and poor people don't ponder it? Just expressing disapproval of rich people?
the only thesis/proposition i see in the comment would be:
"poor people don't think about it"
no other claims
Well, I didn't expect I would have to spell it out.
But seriously think about it. Why doesn't your pet dog sit around thinking about what a farce life is?
How many people who were living in the 1700s do you think sat around thinking life is a farce?
Ponder on that question. Out of everyone living in the world today, how many people do you think sit around thinking life is a farce, who are those people? Why do you think they are thinking this?
I think it's an important question to ask and think about. It's saying something about our society, way of life, way of seeing the world.
So poor people and historical people are in the same bucket as dogs, got it.
How lucky we are to be the only generation in history capable of thinking and reflecting!
Did you read the article? He struggled for many years before achieving fame, and his main source of purpose was having young children. The HN headline doesn’t give the context that he feels outside of Mr Show and raising children, and after a near death experience, he feels less purpose than ever.
Your last sentence claims that he should appreciate how lucky he is. But this is a different question from what, at face value, the statement that life is meaningless or absurd is about. The two choices (first being operative in this thread):
1. Life is meaningless: descriptive claim
2. You ought to appreciate life to the best of your ability: normative claim
Your argument has no bearing on the first claim.
> I think if Bob Odenkirk lived on a community farm where everyone had to work together to survive he would be far happier and think life is far more meaningful.
So you think everyone was happier in the USSR? /s
So you think everyone in the USSR lived on a community farm?
I guess you don't really understand the USSR then...
Probably a better question would be ask the Amish how happy they are? G-D was conceived to fill this gap in the human experience. The Amish harness it to set limits on desire.
From all the parochial nationalistic close minded savage bigoted homophobic toxic macho corrupt Putin boot licking behavior they regularly exhibit, and their spectacularly brutal self-destructive war criminal performance in Ukraine, you'd think they all lived on a community farm, raised as livestock and cannon fodder.
Living in modern cosmopolitan Moscow yet still acting and thinking that way is so much worse than actually being born on a community farm without choosing that lifestyle and mentality.