Death – Parts Per Billion

Undone – the hymn of Sisyphus for modern times

There are certain moments in life where everything seems meaningless while we take a look at the final fate of all things and nihilism takes over, especially in the times of great unexpected failure. A crystal-clear philosophy of absurdism can come to rescue in such unsettling moments of existential confusion. When such complicated ideas reveal themselves through a simple, soulful yet philosophical song spanning few minutes, the impact is immense. ODESZA & Yellow House’s song called ‘Undone’ from their collaborative album called ‘the flaws in our design’ is one such song which treasures the ideas from the myth of Sisyphus and the philosophy of existentialism, absurdism given by Albert Camus. Absurdism focuses on giving life our meaning through revolt, passion and freedom.

A simple, soulful song pointing towards the philosophy of Absurdism

“Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.”
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

Some songs have this magic where you instantly get hooked to them, you cannot put it in words but it makes you feel good. You love the feeling this song creates, but don’t know why. Now it’s in your mind on loop and you brain is completely saturated with it.

Now, there comes a moment when you are busy with something and the same song is playing in background like an ambient noise, like a filler and suddenly you have this epiphany, a revelation about what the song really means. Has this happened with you?

I came across a song in 2023 and thought that I have checked out every corner of this song in my mind, but I was wrong. This song was on loop for almost 10 months (believe me on loop means hardcore omnipresent music) and recently I found something revelatory about this song. It was beyond my superficial interpretation of this song (as this is subjective, maybe I should consider myself a dumb fool to not recognize that important side of the song – someone might have found out that thing, that meaning in their early listening of the same song or maybe I am surely hallucinating in the lands of overthinking! – only the creators know!)

The song I am talking about is from the ODESZA and Yellow House’s EP album “The flaws in our design” called “Undone”. (Written by Clayton Joseph Knight / Harrison Gordon Mills / Emile Van Staden, © Foreign Family Collective Publishing, Gmr Foreign Family Collective)

Flaws in our design by ODESZA and Yellow House

Allow me to take you on a mind trip (what it meant for me actually and what it revealed to me recently)

There’s no time to hide from the sun
There’s no time to come undone
That’s easier said than done
Just pick your poison and run

The song starts with certain urgency – “there is no time”.

The song-writer wants you to face the day and don’t give up. The writer understands that it is difficult to start fresh when every hope is lost, the path you were on, the things you were striving for didn’t come to fruition or didn’t go the ways you wanted. The urgency to exist is far more dominating than what great things you lost. So, writer asks us to start again even though is will be painful. Whatever you will be doing, in the end you are going to die, that finiteness of life brings in the urgency to live, to survive. That is why the song-writer says that even though the poison of existence is painful you must do something stick to something because when the time of departure will come you will fill empty that you didn’t appreciate what existence had to offer. You will call your existence worthless. At least sticking to something will give a meaning to the life – your life – whatever it may be but that will be “your” meaningful life in the end.

I’m struggling to find out where I stand
I keep wrestling with God and with man
Tryna forge a little life in-between
A man can only but dream

The writers are trying to show how the person is going through tough times, this person is trapped in a fight between the natural forces and the people around him/ her.

This is about where do we stand in this grand existence. On a personal level if someone comes to attack me or my loved ones, I consider these lives so precious that I would go beyond limits to save them and yet in the grandiose of all this creation our planet is just a speck of dust. Even if the whole earth is engulfed into some giant star, black hole or is crumbled to dust or vaporized due to a man-made nuclear calamity, nothing in the universe is going to change.

So, how do I justify my worth in this grand existence? It’s somewhat philosophical interpretation of given lines in the song but even on societal level it shows a conflict of the mind. This is a struggle to justify the position of a person in this complicated and chaotic society.

This could also be called as an existential angst; one has to fight with the natural forces of creation and the people around them to create a life they desire. There is always this innate resistance to survive, anything small or large could be responsible for the termination of your existence.

This resistance to survive and create the life we desire gets converted to the existential angst when all our attempts fail, when we lose hope, these are the difficult times of directionless-ness where we try to question our existence. It’s this confusion, this question that “even when we tried all the possible things why didn’t the come to fruition?”

Forging a little life indicates how small is the success rate when one tries to create their own perfect life. A ‘dream-like’ perfect life.

The time’s come to lay it on the line
When meaning seems so hard to find
It all weighs heavy on the mind
It’s easier to leave it behind

Writers are trying to reiterate the urgency through the finiteness of the life. When the right time comes it reveals everything and when you are facing multiple failures, tremendous hardships it leads to breakdown. This breakdown, this hopelessness puts gasoline in the fire of the existential confusion. It feels like there is no way out. The writers feel the same but they advise to leave this weight behind. This is the weight which is actually holding us back in hard times. Acceptance of the failures is the only way to calm down the mind, learn something new. Sometimes it’s not just about failures, its also about the way we wanted our life to be, even after making many attempts if the things are not turning out the way you want, its better to leave that weight behind and move on.

There’s no time to hide from the sun
There’s no time to come undone
That’s easier said than done
Just pick your poison and run

Again, the same advice, whatever you will struggle at will eventually make you feel hopeless, directionless but you should stick to something hopeful and move on.

Life can’t be won, can’t be tamed
The point of it all goes unnamed
The lost and the gained weigh the same
When returned to dust or to flame

There is no way to justify life in certain definitive way. It’s the grandeur of life and the infinite possibilities it provides which are more than enough to confuse anyone, especially those who have faced big failures or totally lost hope. There are these moments when you feel that you are not living a better life than your peers are living, when you feel like others’ lives are more happening and interesting than yours – this is the moment when you must appreciate that many people ready to die for the life you currently have.

And in the end, nothing will matter, everything will return to dust – to nothingness. Every transaction you had during your existence will be balanced to null, Nada.

I’m struggling to find out where I stand
I keep wrestling with God and with man
Trynna forge a little life in-between
A man can only but dream

Living is a struggle, living with failures is even worse but that doesn’t stop us to create those little lively moments in difficult times because our time here is finite. We cannot waste this limited thus precious conscious existence on things which are resisting us from living the lives to the fullest.

The time’s come to lay it on the line
When meaning seems so hard to find
It all weighs heavy on the mind
It’s easier to leave it behind

When you receive the clarity of failure and the reasons behind it, it is always better to leave that weight of guilt, confusion, hopelessness behind to begin a new journey.

There’s no time to hide from the sun
There’s no time to come undone
That’s easier said than done
Just pick your poison and run

Show up, keep your head up, do something and stick to it, you are going to die anyways but make sure that when you die you won’t regret even a single thing, look alive and live your life.

Undone and its (deep) philosophical consequences!

You can call the things mentioned hereon as the garbage generated from my overthinking but bear with me, I have a point. This exactly might be the point of the song-writers while creating this song or this is just my brain connecting some random dots to make sense out of nothingness (that is how trickster our existence and the creation is – again according to my overthinking!)

OK, enough, now to the point!

In single simple line it philosophically goes like this and you can stop reading if you don’t like it!?!!

The recent revelation I had with the song Undone by ODESZA & Yellow House is the philosophy of Absurdism by Albert Camus, so the Myth of Sisyphus comes into picture. This song has uncanny resemblance to the philosophical ideas in absurdism.

Myth of Sisyphus

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was the king of Ephyra who was known to trick death, escape it and even trap it in its own chains. Sisyphus had tricked the Gods many times and gods were running out of the punishments to make a statement. In their one attempt Gods assigned Sisyphus a simple task – to roll a big boulder up the hill. When Sisyphus started rolling the boulder uphill and once it reached the top of the hill the boulder would roll down and again Sisyphus had to roll it uphill. This went on and on and Sisyphus got trapped in this meaningless task. Gods were relieved in the end.

Nihilism and Sisyphus

Albert Camus’s work on the philosophy of the absurd is one importance aspect of how we justify our existence in this seemingly meaningless existence.

The meaningless task of Sisyphus is an analogous our daily mundane routines – sleep, wake up, go to job, come home, eat, sleep (then wait for weekend!). EAT, SLEEP & REPEAT. But even after this repetition, even after this boring routine when it comes to dying, we are always more scared to die than to live this meaningless, mundane life. I mean in the end it is all about coming from and returning to the dirt, even after that we crave for this conscious but repetitive, painful and “poisonous” existence.

The lives we live are full of many small and big cycles, these cycles keep on repeating and we keep on following them. Remember the moment when you achieved something really great and in the next immediate moment you felt empty and directionless? Now that this great feat is achieved what lies next? And you become clueless, then you move on to achieving something far bigger and better and the cycle goes till you eventually die. In the end you weren’t even able to take your body with which you realized your conscious existence. What’s the purpose of all this if it is meant to end into dirt again?

Nihilism – nothingness thus rejects all the ideas which justify conscious human existence rather the existence in totality. Nothing really matters because everything starts and ends into the same worthless things. All this knowledge, all this kindness, all those relationships, all those friendships, all that discipline means nothing, there is no sense in following rules, routines, morality doesn’t make any sense, winners or losers – all end in coffins buried underground.

You must understand that these are the exact feelings many of us go through when we face some great challenges, great failures in our lives. The ideas from Nihilism may get associated to such feelings of meaninglessness. One might think that Nihilism is totally negative way for philosophy of existence but that is not the case. Nihilism also talks about non-attachment, non-possession which are the roots of suffering in life as explained in Buddhism. So, it’s not chalk and cheese scenario to be honest. Life may feel meaningless, filled of mundane routines like the task of Sisyphus and in this life, we are struggling to achieve something to realize in the end that we have to leave all that behind – what a cruel joke!

Existentialism, Absurdism and Sisyphus

What Albert Camus presented in his essays of the Myth of Sisyphus was the philosophy of the absurd.

The tendency of Sisyphus to always play tricks with death is exactly who we are. We are always trying to trick death, reject the death in many ways. Sisyphus shown as the king and having all the enjoyments of the life is who we are; everyone of us wants to live life to its fullest. Like Sisyphus, we all are tied to our routines.

So, the philosophy of absurdism believes that the universe is meaningless and if people will try to find the meaning of the universe, then they will end up in a conflict. Absurdism calls out to the cycles we keep on repeating throughout our existence achieving nothing in the end; what came in, it went out leaving no trace behind.

The key difference between Nihilism and Absurdism is the extent of acknowledgement. Nihilism completely rejects any attribution or meaning to all aspects of life thereby rejecting the worth of life, whereas absurdism is more open ended. Absurdism believes that whatever the creation, the universe is we are not in sync with it to understand it completely. Absurdism thus is humbler and better ready to upgrade its ideology compared to nihilism.

“I don’t know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I cannot know that meaning and that its impossible for me just now to know it”
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

What Camus beautifully did is provide a justification for such “absurd” nature of existence.

This is exactly why the philosophy of absurdism is in sync with the ideas presented in the song Undone.

Absurdism and Undone

Camus in absurdism explains that when people face scenarios of meaninglessness, scenes of existential crisis they reject the very life they possess – thus suicide.

This suicide could be physical or philosophical.

No need to explain physical suicide in detail, the core is that continuous sufferings reduce the perception of the worth of life, what life offers for the sufferings one goes through.

Philosophical suicide is more interesting (!) people kill their own conscience and submit to some ready-made belief system in order to brutally terminate their own existential confusion. (Now you must appreciate what this philosophical suicide is pointing to – the religions spread across he world and the hatred they create is the best example)

Camus says that our urge to live the life (physically and philosophically) is much more overpowering and influential than our whining, crying excuses to reject life. We value our conscious life more than our submission to death, even if it is mundane.

“What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying.”
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

As Camus says, man is condemned to death and the opposite of suicide is to revolt.

Since we cannot evade death, we must entertain death, keep it busy.

So, Albert Camus gave three possibilities of how one could make sense out of all this absurd life – Revolt, Freedom, and Passion.

– Revolt –

We must not accept any ‘final’ or ‘ultimate’ conclusion or calming justification in our unsettling struggles. Because the moment we get a proper justification to our existential angst, we surrender to that way of life (that is how extreme cases of religion work) and the process of learning and curiosity stops there.

The notion of ‘not hiding from the Sun’ in the song thus signify showing up even when the situations are difficult and unsettling. Sun indicating new day (even though being part of the routine) but with new way to look at it.

‘There is no time to come undone’ creates the urgency. Because, when a person is said to be undone – it means that the person has fallen apart, disintegrated, there is no meaningful attribution, purpose to the life they are living. The urgency to live life in spite of seeming meaningless and in spite of ending into death is a call to follow our instinct of living over suicide (philosophical). The absurdism thus focuses the subjective value of life; even though from outside our routines are mundane, only we know what exactly is happening with our lives and that surely is greatly unique; the way we experience our own life and the way other experience it is very special.

That is exactly why you must not waste your time on whining about the problems, losing hope, giving up on something.

The revolt is appreciating the meaninglessness and is also creating space to grow. Even when in final evaluation when we discover that the life is truly meaningless that should not stop us from giving it our own meaning.

That meaning could be anything, that is why ‘picking “your” poison and run’ becomes extremely powerful in the song and it is scattered throughout the song.

– Passion –

Talking about poison, absurdism talks about Passion.

Passion calls for living life full of rich and diverse experiences. Again, just because nihilism reveals the meaningless view of life and creation, it should not stop us from appreciating what the life and creation provide us. Just because you know that you will die ultimately that does not stop you from breathing and waking up in the morning hoping that you will live another day.

Passion could be anything, that is why the songwriters figuratively attributed is as a poison. Whatever makes you feel free, liberated is your poison (bear in mind that this is philosophical). Do things that make you feel alive (again philosophically), run, sing, dance, write, fight, curse, play, work but look alive. You will appreciate that every thing you do, every passion you follow, every poison you consume have their own consequences, the moment you face these consequences of your acts – your life will have meaning. That is why this figurative poison in this song is very important.

“Creating is living doubly. The groping, anxious quest of a Proust, his meticulous collecting of flowers, of wallpapers, and of anxieties, signifies nothing else.”
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

– Freedom –

Third possibility is the freedom. We are absolutely free to think and behave as we decide. The perspective of life being free is more optimistic take on nihilism. If the creation means nothing that it is exactly what we call it! We can call it whatever we want, that is what freedom is. When you think that you are free, you do whatever you want and at that very instance you will realize that even freedom has constraints.

But, as the creation is infinitely meaningless it is open to up-gradation and rebooting. A truth which holds the capacity to upgrade itself is the real ultimate truth I would say; and in the same sense the freedom which knows its boundaries truly knows the real freedom and hence is the real, pure freedom.

“Thinking is learning all over again how to see, directing one’s consciousness, making of every image a privileged place.”
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

(Mathematically Godel’s incompleteness theorem, Spiritually Miyamoto Musashi’s the book of Void talk this exact freedom).

“I know simply that the sky will last longer than I.”
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

‘The struggle with Gods and men to create a dreamy life in between’ is the expression where I associate this song with the Myth of Sisyphus – his actions were exactly like some Greek demigod who challenged both humans and Gods.

‘The heavy weight of meaninglessness in the moment of reckoning’ expressed in the song point towards the that nihilistic and hopeless situations in the struggles of our life. Its better to not cling to such nihilistic thought. Passion explained in absurdism thus becomes the savior in such hard times.

‘The wildness of life’ in the song thus shows the ability of our freedom to upgrade itself in the ocean of infinite possibilities.

“The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays

Listen to this song again with these thoughts of absurdism in the back of your mind, I am sure you will appreciate the song and its creators more. (‘The flaws in our design’ is a well justified name to this album and each song carries its own philosophy. Also pardon my over-explanation in certain places but you get the point (I hope))

You can listen to the song Undone using following links:

References

ODESZA & Yellow House Team Up For New EP “Flaws in Our Design”
The Myth of Sisyphus and other essays – Albert Camus

Time in a Bottle – Making The Finite Life Last Forever

The moment we realize that we are in a possession of something truly valuable is the moment when we start fearing for its loss, even the idea of losing it haunts us. The urgency created by the finiteness of our lives is the reason why we could and should truly appreciate the people and things around us, it is the same urgency which pushes us to dare to live the life we want. Jim Croce’s Time in a Bottle exposes this vulnerability as well as the strength of human beings in his song “Time in a Bottle”.

Remembering one the soulful artists – Jim Croce

Sometimes what poets, writers wish for is weird, quirky. Through this weirdness they are trying to overcome the realistic limitations we have as the human beings. Poets, songwriters are very well known to express their flights of imagination through their writings. They can make a man walk barefoot on the surface of the sun or make an elephant fly in the air making it light as feather or make a wild beast fall in love or make donkey sing like a tenor and list goes on. What makes these imaginations or these wishes special is that the imperfection these wishes’ originator wants to remove from the reality. When the poet makes a person walk barefoot on the sun, he/she wants that person to be able to tolerate and experience that hotness of the sun, when the poet makes the elephants fly, he/she wants them to have the bird’s perspective towards the world and there can be many interpretations depending on the core idea to be conveyed.

Wishes are one integral part of every person’s existence. Facts represent what the reality actually is and the wishes represent how we expect the reality to be. That is why every fact can be a wish but every wish cannot be a reality – a fact. That is where ideas like wishful thinking, false hope originate from. Even though wishes might not be the exact representation of reality – sometimes really far or exactly opposite it, they represent a hidden dimension of how we think and manage our expectations in day-to-day life. In simple words, we always wish everything to happen according to our ways but at the same time, we are also aware that “That’s not how things work in reality!”. And funny enough or given that our stubbornness to have control over the course of our lives, we still keep on wishing things to happen in certain way – our way. Wishes represent the bridge between how we understand the world and how the world really is (and trust me very few or almost none of us have real understanding of how the world is!) You wish a thing to be like this and exactly that happens, now that reality originated from your wish is your understanding of how the world is. When this wish does not come to fruition, the exact opposite of that wish is how the world is for you.

In simple words, a wish is the most powerful tool of how we want our world to be; practical or impractical, it still exists for us through our wishes. Even when it does not come to fruition, it the only existent and personal thing that brings us calmness, peace in the world full of uncertainties. Having too many unrealistic wishes makes one delusional and having too much realism makes one emotionless, mechanical; so there exists a spectrum of how we manage our expectations.

Now that we have established what wishes mean and what should be their dosage in our daily life. Let us move on to a special wish a man had for his loved ones – especially for his baby and his wife. This guy was Jim Croce, an American folk and rock singer-songwriter. The date 20 September 2023 marks 50 years since we lost one of the most original and soulful artists and human beings. Jim’s “Time in a Bottle” song is the embodiment of the tragedy of his life which also point towards the tragedy of being a human; furthermore, it also shows an optimistic and truly important perspective towards living a limited, fragile but fulfilled life. Jim’s words – Jim’s wishes in this song are simple, just in exactly enough quantity but the ideas and thoughts expressed transcend the borders of the infinity.

If I could save time in a bottle 

The first thing that I'd like to do

Is to save every day 'til eternity passes away

Just to spend them with you

Jim wants to have total control over the time he can have. The moment he will have hold over time of his life he wishes all that time to be with his loved ones. Using as simple object as a bottle to contain such an intangible, uncapturable and extremely powerful object like the time shows how desperately he wishes to have control over the time just to have the company of his loved ones – his wife and his son.

It is only the daring of the songwriter’s imagination to make the concept of time as the ‘one with ends of start and finish’ thereby making it finite and “contain”-able in a bottle even after knowing that it is impossible.

The wish to save every day, to have hold over the time to spend shows how time is the most valuable currency we have as the mortal beings. Jim’s wish to transcend even the eternity furthermore intensifies his wish ‘to spend the life with loved ones’.

They say time is an illusion, but we know how treating time as an illusion or as an expendable item can make our mortal lives suffer even more. Even though we have a grasp on the theory of time travel, we have barely scratched on the surface of how to perceive time and control it. This inseparable and highly influential impact of time on our lives make them fragile and irreplaceable too. Jim knew this; that is exactly why when he says that he wants to contain time and eternity to spend them with his loved ones. He is realistically implying that he does not want to waste even a single moment of his life. It’s a good advice for every one of us too.

If I could make days last forever

If words could make wishes come true

I'd save every day like a treasure, and then

Again, I would spend them with you

When Jim will get complete hold on eternity, he would still use that time fully with his family. The repetition of the idea expresses the urgency to not even waste the immediate next moment.

There is innate purpose in Jim’s wish to get hold on the things like eternity and time; things which do not have any boundaries or limits, things which cannot be contained into finiteness. The intent is to signify the incomparable value of the finite time we have in everyone’s life. Spending these moments in doing things we love, have passion for, and with our loved ones is the highest value one can extract from such an incomparable asset. This also a simple way to express how intensely and passionately Jim loves and cares for his family.

But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do once you find them

The wishes and imagination expressed by Jim show how immediately he wants to live his life lying ahead. The moment he introduces the word “but” here brings all of us from his imaginary world into the harsh reality of life that we live in. He expresses a common yet unexpressed feeling all of us carry inside every one of us.

We are always trying to find the perfect timing, perfect moment until we realize that the time we have here, is finite. There is no option but to make every moment count. If you look at the words of people who have realized that the time they have on this earth is really limited, you will understand how the value of time for them shoots up exponentially.

The moment we realize that we are in a possession of something truly valuable – the moment when we appreciate what an important thing we own, is the moment when we start fearing for its loss, even the idea of losing it haunts us. The moment we find the true happiness is the exact moment when we start doubting that this happiness will instantly perish and something bad will start happening. This is human nature, there is nothing wrong in it. It also highlights how loss of certain thing actually makes us appreciate the true value of that lost thing.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”
Steve jobs, Stanford Commencement Address, 2005

A true artist is an expert of bringing out such very common yet unexpressed emotions out to the masses through his /her creations. It creates this common ground where people from different walks of life – different levels of life share their common personal, intimate experiences. Jim beautifully puts down the tragedy of the finiteness of life and the urgency to live it, experience it thoroughly, inside -out. It is really heartbreaking to know that you won’t be there around your loved ones forever. And most importantly, the feeling of loss is more intense, dreadful than actual loss itself but that is what the reality is.

I've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go through time with

Now what Jim says here is about how you can express your intense love, passion with practicality. He assures his loved ones that even though the time he has, the time all of us have is finite, we can still make it worth of our life by being with the people we love, by valuing them. This finiteness of our existence pushes us to appreciate everything, every person we have close to us.

You can see in the early part of the song, Jim expresses naïve, highly romanticized and somewhat foolish thoughts of being eternal forever to express the passionate love, affection towards his love. This early part of the song also indirectly reveals how carelessly we handle some important aspects and important people in our life, in our youth where we literally feel like immortals with infinite energy.

There comes a moment when we have to actually make decisions solely by ourselves which would alter the upcoming course of our very own life and there is no escape from these choices, at that same moment we understand what we hold dear to us, what actually matters, what is noise and what illusions we were following till that moment. Some would say that we become mature and more realistic. The perfect veil of illusions drops down showing the imperfect, crude reality. This is the moment we understand that even though the illusion was pleasing, the reality is where we actually exist and what could be more worthwhile than being with those who are special to us in this good and real time even though it is finite.

If I had a box just for wishes

And dreams that had never come true

The box would be empty

Except for the memory of how they were answered by you

The realization of the value of people, things, and moments in which we interacted with them makes us appreciate their real beauty. The time we must live may not be infinite but even in this limited time the memories we create with our loved ones make us truly immortal. These memories are the linkages which get carried on from one person to another sometimes from one generation to the next one.

When a person is granted with immortality but if he/she has no one to love, to care for or nobody cares for or loves him/her, then what realistic purpose does this eternal life serve? It is exactly equivalent to death.

Our existence is valid and real only when other people recognize it. It is a tough pill to swallow. Many would argue that the life comes from within, you are a whole universe existing inside you, you don’t need others to validate your life – your existence but please understand that these statements are valid only for the people whose value of life lies with the opinions of others. When I am expressing about the validity of our own life upon the recognition of others, it is the value creation and upliftment of the humanity inside of us due to the interactions we get involved into. You are a universe into yourselves but if you are not making other people’s lives better, affecting the objects, people in a constructive way you are an isolated universe which is exactly equivalent to living in your own imaginary world. It will still exist as a sole but that is one selfish way to live. Many undiscovered wonders are revealed when things interact with each other.

It might seem overly philosophical but when faced with the “existential crisis”, “existential angst”, “chaos of the reality and its imperfections” everyone needs an identity, a pivot to stick to make this life worthwhile. This feeling of making our life worthwhile is created only because of the urgency to live. And this urgency to live to its fullest is created due to the finiteness of the life.

Jim expressed this philosophy in his very simple yet powerful song. He appreciates that every purpose of his life found a direction towards completion, every wish he had was fulfilled at the exact moment when he decided to create memories with his loved ones. You must appreciate that most of the times our wishes create an illusive, deceptive reality in our head where everything is perfect, it is only upon exposure of these wishes to reality when the facts are revealed. These facts may not be perfect but they are the only real thing. That why memories are really very important.

Memories have similar nature to the imagination and wishes we have but they are the outcomes of we passing through the time. So, our memories are the next best things we have to the reality in which we live and not our imagination or wishes. Memories are the embodiment of the realistic imagination and wished realized. That is why we can make these memories eternal by creating them with our loved ones and engaging in the doing thing we love.

But there never seems to be enough time

To do the things you want to do once you find them

I've looked around enough to know

That you're the one I want to go through time with

The needs and wants are less important than the moments we have with our loved ones. It is this irreplaceability of any other materialistic thing with the memories and moments in the company of the loved ones which Jim wants to highlight through his song.

There is one important story attached with the song “Time in a bottle”. Jim wrote this song when he came to know that he was going to be a father. He was a struggling artist enjoying the artwork he created with the support of his wife. You can say that he was in the bliss of his artistic creations which he loved creating. When he understood the start of his fatherhood, he came to truly know and appreciate the reality of life and the finiteness it has. This made him serious about his art which inspired him to create his world-famous album “You don’t mess around with Jim”. Next time when you will listen to this song with the knowledge of what actually inspired him to write this song, then you will appreciate how deeply he loved his son and his wife. He wanted every moment from thereon to be filled with their memories and that was enough to justify his finite life, finite yet truly invaluable. One can call it poetic, sad, tragic or poignant- Jim died in a plane crash aged 30. It feels like Jim had some foresight about his upcoming life when he wrote “Time in a bottle”. Even with the lifespan of mere 30 years, you will appreciate his life through this song “Time in a Bottle”. His life, thus becomes an example of creating a long-lasting life – finite yet long lasting, eternal and irreplaceable life.

The urgency created by the finiteness of our lives is the reason why we could and should truly appreciate the people and things around us.

Who knows, in coming eon or maybe in coming millennium we might actually be able to contain time in a bottle, then Jim’s all wishes might become a reality. Until then let us appreciate what we have as this incomparable precious life.

The Existence – Why? How? And What?

Logotherapy is not intended only to search for the purpose of life. It justifies and dignifies the human life for its capabilities to remain in the ebb and flow of existence which is the only real thing amongst the infinite yet unrealized possibilities in the universe.

Part 2 – Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy for Humanity

“Was du erlebst, kann dir kein Gott mehr rauben.”

(No god can rob you of what you experience.)
Robert Hamerling

Answers from Logotherapy

In the Part 1 of the post, we tried to touch some ideas like – “three schools of psychology”, Freudian “will to pleasure”, Adlerian “will to power”, Viktor Frankl’s “will to meaning” as in Logotherapy, “existential vacuum”, “Noö-dynamics”, “determinism according to Logotherapy”, “Freedom according to Logotherapy” and “the responsibility that comes with the freedom”

In summary, Viktor Frankl a holocaust survivor, psychiatrist by profession witnessed and experienced the extremes of the human psyche leading to the creation of the concrete foundations of Logotherapy. According to logotherapy, it is the meaning, the purpose – which makes a man to survive through any situations in life, especially the worst ones. When there were not chances to become powerful, when there were no means to gain pleasure even then people chose to go through the hardships/ sufferings – they chose life. Not only to survival but even upon the realization of death, people accepted that death in same way one would have accepted the life. They had something inside them which made sense out of the sufferings, pain, life and even death. This “sense” was the purpose they had identified for themselves to serve. This purpose, this meaning to their own life justified the sufferings they endured which created the hope for their survival and justification to the death for the people who accepted it with dignity.

Noö-genic neurosis is that existential blockage rather vacuum where a person’s mind itself is unsettled because it has no justification, no sense, no meaning behind the activities, decisions to live through the life. Upon realization of the real freedom, a person (and not the conditions, the objects around him) can determine his fate even in worst conditions; the person can still have that “optimal behavior”. This realization of freedom is possible because human psyche seeks for the sense of the things, the meaning, the purpose. This freedom also calls for the sense of responsibility because human life practically has limited span, is perishable which brings that urgency to achieve the best possible outcome, the optimal outcome out of the only life one has. Responsibility brings the best out of the freedom one has; without the sense of responsibility, freedom degenerates into arbitrariness, a diffused state where the outcomes of the event have no significant impact. In simple words, freedom with responsibility gives focused and optimal outcomes whereas freedom without responsibility (still) gives results but are diffused as there is no intent to achieve anything.

Why? Why does the life bear “a meaning”, “a purpose”?

Upon understanding what actually lies under the human psyche and the human life (i.e., the purpose, the meaning), it becomes apparent to ask the same existential question – Why does life seek for meaning only as there can be other uncountable possibilities, uncountable factors which drive the psyche, the life, the existence? Why nothing in the world – the universe but meaning only?

Viktor Frankl has excellently given the theoretical and practical proofs for the importance of meaning in a person’s life. Theoretically proof – if a person is always driven by pleasures and power then why there are examples where people chose sacrifice, where people died for their honor, where people stood fearlessly for their morals, where people rose against something really powerful, where people accepted the hardships even when there was no guarantee for them to end? These are not the exceptional cases in a human behavior. Rather when human beings are stretched to their extremes these behaviors are more common. So, unlike the pleasure and power the awareness, the urge to find the meaning is not just a secondary drive of the human life. The urge to the meaning, the purpose will always be present even in the absence of pleasure and power.

Practically Viktor Frankl presents a study to prove his point here. 89% people from a French public opinion poll and 78% of the people in an American students’ statistical survey indicated that people want “something to live for”, “finding a purpose and meaning to the life”.

I think, it is the omnipotent nature of the infinite possibilities which the real freedom grants to every person. Out of those infinite possibilities very few become realized to reality from where the freedom loses its ideal nature. Then the superposition of realized possibilities create the “real” reality which has been brought from chaos, an inconceivable, an un-understandable situation to a familiar, slightly better predictable state. This better predictable, the one “out of which some sense can be made” state is the fundamental state required for the human life to thrive upon. This urgency for predictability, for sense, for meaning, for purpose is solely because of the limited nature of the realization of life we have.

(The word predictability is not used here to imply that man wishes for everything to happen according to his wishes, rather the predictability is used in the sense for how a person will always know how he will react to the events presented to him even when they are not predictable.)

Does that mean that if a person becomes immortal, will the urge for purpose – the will to meaning ceases to exist? That is where responsibility comes into picture which Viktor Frankl has posed while defining freedom’s role in human life. Only with responsibility can the freedom be brought to the realization to possibilities out of the infinite unrealized possibilities.

In single sentence I think, a single realized possibility is more powerful than the infinite unrealized possibilities. The extraction of this power is only possible if the there is freedom with a responsibility. That is why the life exists; it exists to create the realized possibilities out of the infinite unrealized possibilities (which the universe holds or whatever ultimate there is can generate).

How? How one discovers the purpose

The profoundness of Frankl’s logotherapy is not just about the depth of the ideas and the practicality of the experimental results. He also explained how one gains this meaning, which are as follows:

Ways to discover Meaning of Life-

Creating a work or doing a deed
By experiencing something or encountering someone
By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering

1. Creating a work or doing a deed

It is very similar to figuring out what you actually love doing and how you can also benefit others (obviously including you) in the process. (Some call it following your passion, answering your inner calling to create something that you and others value)

2. By experiencing something or encountering someone – Power of love

“The second way of finding a meaning in life is by experiencing something – such as goodness, truth and beauty- by experiencing nature and culture or, last but not least, by experiencing another human being in his very uniqueness- by loving him.”
Viktor Frankl

The meaning of Love itself became very “meaningful” to me when I understood what the logotherapy stands for. Before stumbling upon the ideas of Viktor Frankl on “the meaning”- for me love was a selfish idea to gain pleasure, to have that comfort for ourselves. Something which goes like this:

“We never love anyone. What we love is the idea we have of someone. It’s our own concept – our own selves – that we love.”
Fernando Pessoa

Love is very selfish idea if we go by this statement. For me here, Pessoa meant that love emerges from inside, hence it is very “egoic” It gives us pleasure to love someone, to do everything to make them happy which ultimately will make us happy, thereby becoming selfish in the end. But then my perspectives changed. (I haven’t studied and understood the premise and the intentions behind the Pessoa’s comment on love here, which can be reserved for discussion somewhere else.)

Upon going through the ideas on Logotherapy, we become aware that there are examples where lovers (not the romantic ones only) have crossed the limits of life for other people or other things, where (again) pleasure and power were not guaranteed.

Love thus becomes a medium to realize the possibilities of the life experiences. If we are so obsessed to find the meaning of our life, then it equally becomes very meaningful to have someone who understands the same urge for meaning in you too. This love is not just a person-to-person possibility, it can also be for things and experiences.

“Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art… It has no survival value: rather it is one of those things which give value to survival.”
C S Lewis

This is the reason you will always see why almost all the events, experiences, art forms, philosophies, cultures, religions and whatnot are immediately linked to the concept of love. It’s on a whim where things not making sense are illogically explained by love, it is innate fact in everyone which logotherapy makes apparent.

3. By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering

The third way one can realize the worth of life is by going through sufferings. Sufferings stretch a person to his extremes where there are clear boundaries between the existences of life and death. The urgency to make the existence of some worth becomes eminent here. The meaning discovered in such situations pushes the person to bring even the hopeless situations to his benefit by developing an attitude of optimism. The inability to change the situations makes the person change himself to bring the best out of the situation. It the way in which the person finds the meaning to his suffering.

“Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment it finds a meaning.”
Viktor Frankl

It is also important to understand that if suffering gives the person meaning for the life that also does not mean that everyone has to suffer to find the meaning in his own life. Viktor Frankl was very clear in these terms. Hence, he clarified the earlier two ways to find the meaning in life. The ideas communicated by Viktor Frankl are very similar to the ideas in stoicism which also discusses about focusing on things which you can control.

What? What is life according to the logotherapy?

The logotherapy explains that life is all about the tragedies, in Viktor’s words the tragic triad of three things namely pain, Guilt and Death. Why tragedies are considered to represent life is important here. It is very easy for life to exist when these three things (pain, guilt, death) are not there, but the life still remains existent rather becomes more meaningful in the presence of the same hostile aspects. Logotherapy thus discusses that even in such hostile conditions, one can find the meaning, one can have the “optimal behavior” by following ways in the words of Viktor himself as follows:

Pain – Turning suffering into a human achievement and accomplishment.
Guilt – Deriving from guilt the opportunity to change oneself for better.
Death – deriving from life’s transitoriness an incentive to take responsible action.

1. Pain

Logotherapy made a successful attempt to justify what is the real nature of pleasure and pain. It established a fact that life is not just a set of tragic events of sadness for someone and a series full of happiness for others. Life is about how we as a person create meaning out of our sufferings, even when they are not in control. This is the real victory over those sufferings. Logotherapy actually balanced the concepts of happiness and sadness which both are the inseparable aspects of every life. One of them is always favored (happiness) but the realization of meaning makes the least favorable yet existent (sadness) a reality. This is very effective when people are sad even in their pursuits of happiness. They expect that doing one specific thing will bring them happiness, make them feel accomplished. After doing that thing, achieving that thing they again become clueless and sad that it was not what they expected.

“Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. A human being is not in the pursuit of happiness but rather in search of a reason to become happy, last but not least, through actualizing the potential meaning inherent and dormant in a given situation.”
Viktor Frankl

When people get overwhelmed upon the realization that happiness is not consistent for their whole life the existential vacuum peaks in and again this meaninglessness becomes dominant. Frankl effectively established that this forced urge to become happy is one of the major reasons for the depression, aggression and addiction in the newer generations.

2. Guilt

Frankl here gives one of his professional experiences with the convicted criminals- the guilty people of the society. According to his ideas from personal experiences which are really powerful- every crime cannot be traced back to single point event, single person, single cause, single behavior. If it is impossible to pinpoint and press conviction on such singular aspects, then how can a person be considered completely guilty for the crime. For such human beings rather every person feeling guilty about something life is about rising above it. Even though Viktor’s examples are based on criminal and convicted human beings, it will be an understatement that they are not applicable to everyone of us. Every one of us considers themselves guilty for at least one thing, one mistake in their life. Finding the purpose, the meaning can help us to rise above this guilt with the feeling of responsibility. What a powerful thought!

Humanness in everyone is one important aspect of logotherapy. Rising above guilt through realization of meaning reflects that. It made the psychology more humanitarian rather that a mechanistic interaction between humans and their drives.

3. Death

We have already discussed that the perishable nature of life creates the urgency to meaning. The sense of death brings in the responsibility to optimally live the only life one has is an important aspect of every human life rather every life.

“The opportunities to act properly, the potentialities to fulfill a meaning, are affected by the irreversibility of our lives.”
Viktor Frankl

This is where I think we can understand what actually lies under the existence of life. Our existence as a conscious life is destined to create the realities from the infinite possibilities that universe has. We are the means to bring the intangible possibilities into the reality through our lives which makes every life meaningful. Every life is meaningful and hence deserves dignity. It is dignified because by its mere existence it has successfully created the realities out of the unrealized and intangible possibilities. Our existence itself makes us dignified of the life we have even if it may not be useful for others.

“An incurably psychotic individual may lose his usefulness but yet retain the dignity of a human being.”
Viktor Frankl

This is also the moment where Viktor has highlighted on creating real possibilities in present rather than dwindling on to past and future. Past is more important because it is where the reality existed, it is where the meaning of actions from the present are justified.

The Super-meaning – why does the meaning exist?

“What is demanded of man in not, as some existential philosophers teach, to endure the meaninglessness of life, but rather to bear his incapacity to grasp its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms. Logos is deeper than logic.”
Viktor Frankl

It is also very important to understand that Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy is not just about finding the sense to the life, the meaning the purpose of the life. It also makes one important argument about the limitations of human understandings. When we will go on asking “why?” to the answers of every “why?”, we will end up into some abstract idea of meaning which won’t even make sense to our existence. (And again, the same spiral of existential vacuum will start thereby rendering the question useless itself) even though there are some things which are beyond your understandings that also does not mean that your meaning should always justify unknowns, rather it is paradoxical. If the purpose of life is to create the realities from the intangible, unrealized infinite possibilities then it is very important to understand that the meaning need not to be some abstract meaning in order to justify every possibility in the universe. Logotherapy thus becomes very powerful to create a practical, real picture and purpose of human life. Logotherapy thus justifies and dignifies the human life for its capabilities to be there even in the ebb and flow of existence which is the only real thing amongst the infinite yet unrealized possibilities.

Featured Image – Jewish Museum Berlin

For more, read Part 1 of this blog post- Answering the questions on existence of “the existence” – Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy for Humanity – Part 1

The Last Lecture – How to break the cycle of birth and death?

Realization of the limitations of life

Here is a quick question-

“What will you do when you realize that you are going to die within few weeks, months?“

The question is really difficult to answer for everyone but the most basic answer would be to live the moments you have to the fullest. I have realized through the experiences and examples around me that the awareness, the realization of death itself is a new birth. One would be never the same as he/she were after having this realization.

The realization brings in two basic questions (actually there would be infinite number of questions in such scenario but they all boil down to a few):

One – What should I do with the time that I have? and Two – What would/could happen after the end of my existence?

In most of the cases, the first part consumes most of the remaining life one has- as it is the part where the person has most of the control and there is nothing wrong with that. But those who conquer the second question kind of win with the first part of the question and the game of life and death itself to some extent.

This reflects the most important part of us being the human species. We always want to cheat the death. We always want to make sure that we will remain around even when we are not physically there. We want people – especially our loved ones to remember us in their lifetimes.

It all boils down to your legacy.

The Last lecture by Randy Pausch – The lecture and the book

One smart person went through one such event which changed the way people around him and people who will be exposed to his legacy will remember him. Randy Pausch – a professor in Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon gave a lecture which is sufficient enough for every human to have a perspective towards life. The lecture soon turned into a book which has interesting ideas, events, thought processes from his life which show us why he thought so, what inspired him to say that exact line in his last lecture. It should be on every person’s read list, watch list.

Every simple thing becomes special when one becomes aware of its backstory, its origin. “The Last Lecture” by Randy was special not because it was his last one (supposedly), it was because of the ideas that inspired him to deliver that lecture. At the age of 45 in September 2006 Randy was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and was told that he has time of only three to six months to live. Inspired by the ongoing lecture series in his university where he worked and being a teacher/lecturer to heart, he decided to deliver one such lecture that will help others to achieve their dreams. He named the lecture – “Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”. The lecture was Randy’s learnings and life experiences boiled down into some slides of a presentation.

The book called “The last Lecture” came after the lecture and became the bestseller. The lecture is a great phenomenon in itself but the book is more insightful and also dives deeper into Randy’s life events. The book has literally added more life to every word in Randy’s lecture. While reading the book you will understand the events and motivations held by Randy while he was delivering this last lecture.

The need for the lecture and the book

It became apparent that Randy has very less time left to spend with his family (his wife Jai and three children Dylan, Logan and Chloe). Randy realized that he won’t be there to experience the upcoming events with his children. That was one of the motivations to deliver this last lecture. This lecture is not just a one and half hour of knowledge or wisdom blurted out because he has very less time on earth. Randy could have done other valuable things than delivering the lecture but he didn’t. Actually, for Randy this was his masterpiece lecture and it truly is a masterpiece. This lecture by Randy Pausch is actually who we are as a true human being. We want to cheat death in some way. We want to create that legacy for the next generation, we want to fool the time and its flow.

The highlights of “The Last Lecture”

Every word in this book is a drop of the elixir of life. The lecture, the book, the very sentences are treasure chests of lifelong wisdom. There are many parts in this lecture which will make you reflect on your own motivations for life, dreams.

The brick walls

You will find all types of brick walls in Randy’s lectures. Randy makes a point clear that there always will be brick walls, hurdles in your life. How you strongly want something will either make you break the wall or leave it as it was.

“The brick walls are there for a reason. They’re not there to keep us out. The brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.”
Randy Pausch

Randy also points a beautiful idea about the brick walls which I loved a lot. Randy says that the brick walls are there to actually help you have the seriousness for your real desires and reduce the distractions.

“The brick walls are there to stop the people who don’t want it badly enough. They’re there to stop the other people.”
Randy Pausch

There is one “Romantic brick wall” Randy discusses, which should be left for personal experiences of readers and listeners (believe me it is worth reading and contemplating) It makes a good point on lifelong love and relationship we develop with our partner.

The concept of head fake

Randy gives one interesting trick for lifelong teaching and learning. What is a gift of the greatest teacher? It is the ability to create the interest of students into his topic and make them aware of the magic this knowledge can do. Randy establishes with many examples that you can teach anyone anything if you divert there focus from the target/destination to the actual process/journey. Randy calls this trick of diversion as a head-fake. The student won’t even realize what they will be approaching while learning but when reached to the target – when learnt something, they will truly appreciate the process and the teacher himself. It is more enjoyable in the book. Randy makes sure that this head-fake keeps bringing its head up throughout the lecture and the book.

Intellectual Humility

Even if you are right all the time that does not mean that everyone will accept you all the time. While being intelligent we humans are emotional creatures too. Most of the time the emotional part is heavier than the intellectual part. Randy tells a story of his “Dutch uncle” who subtly pointed his arrogant behavior with the people even when he was smarter than them.

Value of time

One of the most interesting things about the last lecture is that how Randy thinks about time management. The ideas conveyed through the lecture are unconventional- like these are some of the most practical advices on time management. Questioning the things on which you are spending time, having a to-do list (even if you might think of changing it later), discipline of handling random things to save the time lost in searching them at the last hour, delegating the tasks and trusting people with these tasks can free your hands, taking breaks are some of the most practical and doable things Randy suggests about time management.

Collaborate with different types of people

Not restricting yourselves to one stream, ideas, group of people can do a great value addition in your personality. Randy asks everyone to work in a team and not only in a team but in different types of teams, different types of people. In many parts of the book, you will realize how Randy’s teaching techniques always were connected to group learning and Randy gives some of the best examples on the success of this method. Working in teams and power of multidisciplinary learning is one key takeaway Randy provides.

Sustainable and long-term thinking

Randy has also highlighted the importance of long-term benefit over a short-term pleasure. He makes everyone aware of the value of being earnest person – a person with a core rather than being a hip who is just on surface trying to impress everyone.

Contingency plan – “All you have is what you bring with you”

Randy gives optimism a different dimension called practical optimism. Even though he knows that he has to enjoy every moment in his life, Randy does not run away from the reality of disease and the death closing in and he proves that with many examples from his life events. Practical optimism is thinking about the limitations of the situation and getting ready handle those worse conditions. Randy gives a quick disaster management lesson through one such part in his lecture.

Get a feedback loop; and listen to it.

One important part of intellectual humility is feedback and taking actions on this feedback. Valuing the feedback can create wonders in your personality and help you to connect with other on deeper levels

Create a legacy, Cheat death

Randy wants everyone to have a sense of giving back to the society. On a personal level it becomes, your duty to put your trust in someone to transfer your wisdom in the development of that person. That is how humanity has evolved and made breakthroughs. Randy tells about many of his students and colleagues to prove his point and his motivation behind it.

The lecture, the book is the legacy that Randy wants to give to the society.

At the end of the lecture, Randy has kept a surprise for every reader, listener which will again prove the point that he is one of the greatest persons, teacher, father humanity has ever seen.

You will also realize that every human life is so special in different aspects when you closely inspect the life events from Randy’s Last lecture. These are life events which are common to every human being in every way. I think Randy’s thoughts, life events actually celebrate the meaning of being a human being.

Legacy- The cycle breaker

We are constantly chasing something over our entire lifetime- money, fame, peace, satisfaction and what not. We always have some goals even though they are not called as “goals” but they are always there in the form of our desires, wishes, expectations.

Either you achieve them or you don’t. So, there are always two possible outcomes for every pursuit of desire- goal:

You did something today. Things turned out to be great – Congratulations! Now move ahead with greater task to benefit yourselves and others.

You did something today. Things were not so good – Sorry for your loss (prepare for the punishment in worst case!) How will you work on things to cope with this and get out of it.

The thing which remains same in both cases is that you will show up on the next day. There is 100% chance that you will live tomorrow to celebrate/ build further or to work things out/solve the problem. The goals dictate this direction, the modus operandi for what should be done next, to achieve what you want. It tells you to have a vision, a future outlook.

But what happens when there is no future for you? Do your goals- short term, long term your true calling matter? What if someone tells you that you have only few days in your life. What will happen to your long term and short-term goals, your inner calling? For me dying in a blink of a moment would be far easier than going through such a dreadful time with the information that the death is waiting for you just in the next corner.

This becomes the moment when we realize the things which we were striving/ fighting for. We become aware of the worthlessness of the things thereby valuing the life experiences in a wider sense. And things that we were chasing become worthless in front of the life experiences we had Which actually inspires us to create an awareness, a sense of value in the eyes of people we love. That is when we become self-less and seek for a legacy. The purpose of legacy and even legacy itself can sometimes be selfish, but a true legacy is always self-less.

Even though Randy wanted to create this legacy for his children and he highlights same intentions through his last lecture, one should remember that the life events he shares in this last lecture actually show how self-lessness can impart greatness to a simple human being. Thus, even though Randy’s intentions were selfish, the legacy he created becomes the greatest legacy – the selfless legacy humanity can have forever.

The legacy is what makes others after our time to build upon something to advance further and which lives there even when you are not around. We humans have this gift of legacy which ultimately makes us aware about the worthlessness of the things in the cycle of life and death and actually helps us to value the experiences in our lives in a greater and deeper sense.

For further exploration:

Randy Pausch Last Lecture: Achieving Your Childhood Dreams
The Last Lecture – by Randy Pausch with Jeffrey Zaslow

Image Reference- Death and Life by Gustav Klimt from W i kimedia

P.S. – One of the most important and experience shared by Randy that I loved was his quote in the early part as follows:

Every quote from hereon belong to The Last Lecture by Randy Pausch.

“If you dispense your own wisdom, others often dismiss it: if you offer wisdom from a third party, it seems less arrogant and more acceptable.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

This also reflects that even after being a great teacher/ educator, Randy practiced intellectual humility to the heart and he was really master of his art.

There are many great lines which deserve separate attention and they should inspire you to visit this lecture especially the book for once in your lifetime.

“Engineering isn’t about perfect solutions; it’s about doing the best you can with limited resources.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“If you can dream it, you can do it.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“If you dispense your own wisdom, others often dismiss it; if you offer your wisdom from a third party, it seems less arrogant and more acceptable.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Never make a decision until you have to.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“Have something to bring to the table, because that will make you more welcome.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“If you can find an opening, you can probably find a way to float through it.”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

“You’ve got to get the fundamentals down, because the fancy stuff is not going to work”
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

When you’re screwing up and nobody says anything to you anymore, that means they’ve given up on you.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Tenacity is a virtue, but it’s not always crucial for everyone ho hard you work at something.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

People are more important than things.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

If she doesn’t really love you, then it’s over. And if she does love you, then love will win out.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Not everything needs to be fixed.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Don’t complain, just work harder.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Never lose the child-like wonder
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Start by sitting together
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Go out and do for the others what somebody did for you.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

A good apology is like an antibiotic; a bad apology is like rubbing salt in the wound.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

There is more than one way to measure sure profits and losses. On every level, institutions can and should have a heart.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

If you can find your footing between two cultures, sometimes you can have the best of the both worlds.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

When we’re connected to others, we become better people.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

All you have to do is ask.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Be good at something: it makes you valuable.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

Find the best in everybody; no matter how you have to wait for them to show it.
Randy Pausch, The Last Lecture

The Afterlife of Love

“After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.”

– Aldous Huxley

Everyone carries their own treasure while being alive. Interestingly, this treasure is not filled with things, materialistic objects (and far from gold, diamonds, platinum) rather this treasure contains the feelings which you think are totally exclusive. These are the feelings and experiences which you think that they belong only to you. You don’t want anybody or everybody to discover it. These emotions are mostly attached to some ideas, moments, anecdotes, stories, especially songs. Every one of us has their own favorite song which they don’t want others to discover. I have seen in some cases we feel betrayed when we come to know that the same song is liked by someone you adore, someone who is your friend. Such is the possession we have with some intangible things and the emotions attached to it. The only thing to understand is that same things can invoke similar feeling in many people and it is only a matter of time when you or others become aware about them.

Today, we will be diving into one such song which is so underappreciated as if it seems like everyone had already planned to hide it away from the world only because of the selfish love for the feelings it creates in their minds. Maybe someone will be discovering it the first time. This is my interpretation of the song, maybe somebody will have different opinion.

So here we go!

IF I LEFT THE WORLD- The Song

Song Credits:

Song by GRYFFIN FEATURING MARINA & MODEL CHILD

Songwriters: Thomas Andrew Searle Barnes / Benjamin Alexander Kohn / Peter Kelleher / Marina Lambrini Diamandis / Danny Parker / Daniel Griffith / A. Govere

If I Left The World lyrics © Primadonna Girl Limited, Danny Clementine Music, Big Deal Beats, Zim Croc Music, Songs Of Universal Inc., Jams Of Big Family, Songs By Gryffin

The Search and The Care

See a million faces
Sliding down below
Awful lot of strangers
Only one I’m lookin’ for
It’s lonely in this cabin
God, I wanna know
Are you with somebody else
Who’d never let you go?

The visual we get here is that someone is searching for a person from above (possibly heaven!). The strangers seem to be awful to him indicating the urgency of finding his exact person (supposedly the woman he loves which becomes clear in upcoming lines of the song, but the interpretation can be used for the opposite gender too). The search going down below and questioning to the God indicates that the lover has physically died and left the world, has left his love behind alone in the world. The only thing he now desires for her is to have someone near her to endure or forget the pain of his loss. To get over it. Someone who will be with her forever.

The Haunting Loneliness

See, man is a social animal. Our personality is the outcome of how we handle the people around us and how they handle us; this influence upon us is both direct and indirect. That is the same reason for which we have parent/s, guardian/s, relative/s, friend/s, lover/s, partner/s, acquaintance/s. Human babies themselves are very weak when they are born compared to other animals in nature. A new born baby cannot survive by itself if left alone.

We come alone and go alone- but the time we spend while we are alive, we seek someone to be with us and that I think is the irony of life. The “loneliness in the cabin” projects the same emotion.

In short, loneliness is the last worst emotion most of we want in life. (Though the tolerance with loneliness is varying in varying persons, some exceptions compensate their loneliness with other things, emotions instead of persons- like hobbies, meditation etc. and even a diversion)

The Selfless Love

Three emotions are expressed in this starting part of the song which are:

the feeling of loss and death
the feeling of loneliness
the endlessness and eternal nature of love

The urge of our lover to have a new companion with his love to go through her remaining life shows the eternal nature of love he has for her. Even death cannot separate the feelings, love and care he has for her. (Quick doubt- what happens to our feelings when we die?) He knows that she will miss him, it will make her feel lonesome and hence wishes that she will have someone to move ahead in life.

Even though our lover is completely detached from the living world (being dead), the invisible string of his love for her wants to make sure that she will have proper companion to endure the pain of his loss.

The Flights of Poetry and Love

I want another life in
A brand new galaxy where
There ain’t no sense of time and
There ain’t no gravity

As obvious as the lines say, our lover wants to have a new life with his love in a world where there are no limitations, boundaries.

Love is the only emotion which can invoke such desire of starting the life with all new living conditions. Poetry becomes the tool of this love to convey such strong emotions!

The concept of “brand new galaxy” (not even new country or new world!) highlights the strong feeling of meting again, starting over again. (Everybody knows how difficult it is to create even a single new cell, single new molecule from scratch but we will allow the poetic freedom especially added concession in terms of love in this case!!!) Anyways, jokes aside.

The world where time is not present shows that the feeling is desired to be eternal, the desire for the lack of gravity, weightlessness shows that the lover want to be free from all obligations, “weight” of expectations, responsibilities just to love her. I think the ideas of new galaxy with timelessness, weightlessness (no gravity) is what communicates the universal nature of love. These lines clearly show that love is beyond the forces that bind our existence in the universe. The lover has this feeling that the practical, non-ideal, restricted, logical nature of reality will always overshadow the ideal, infinite nature of his love. Hence, our lover wishes for such reality only to meet his lover again, only to love her which are highlighted by the feelings of eternity and weightlessness.

The Regret

If I left the world
Would anybody miss me while I
Look down on this city thinkin’
Should have loved you more?
And maybe you’d be with me, darling
If I hadn’t gone and left the world

Our lover is worried about who will remember him after his death. He further expresses his failure to love her more. This is the only regret that he is having hence contemplates what could have been the situation if he was alive. The care for her loneliness and melancholy induced due to his helplessness against the reality to love her is highlighted here. Our lover imagining the future possibilities if he had been with his love shows his deep sense of loss. The sadness of not being able to love her is stronger than the sadness of his own death.

Even though life and death are not controllable by humans, our lover considers that this is his failure to leave his love alone when dying.

The longing for escape

Been a lot of places
And none of them were home
Always told myself that I’d be
Better off alone
Float up from my body
Been longing for the moon
Look her in the eye and tell her
I’ma see you soon

Imagine that some immaterial form (like floating soul) of our lover is regretting and feeling bad where his love comes to console him and expresses what she is feeling after his loss. The voice of a lady make that clear while listening.

After he left, she has tried to make amends with the reality and tried to adjust with the absence of her love. But, the irreplaceable nature of his company has convinced her to go solo. This expression highlights the importance of his existence in her life. The vacuum created by his death makes her to leave the reality, her mortal form in a hope that she will meet him in the afterlife. Important to note here is that she does not want to die like a helpless person who embraces death due to loneliness rather she expects her soul to console her body that they will meet again. (Indirectly, she won’t harms herself for his loss projecting her sanity and maturity)

The idea of soul leaving the body in the search for her lover and promising to return again is such a strong emotion which was possible only through sheer poetry! The healthy mentality, the healthy nature of the love between our lovers is what is conveyed in these lines.

This also highlights that this love was not about physicality or him being physically with her rather it was about the feelings and the emotions with him, hence the reason she is ready to remain alone and with longing for the moon- the symbol of love, his love.

I want another life in
A brand new galaxy where
There ain’t no sense of time and
There ain’t no gravity

If I left the world
Would anybody miss me while I
Look down on this city thinkin’
Should have loved you more?
And maybe you’d be with me, darling
If I hadn’t gone and left the world

The Silver Lining of Reciprocity

She also desires to start new life in brand new galaxy which resonates with her lover.

This is her consoling him on a level so that our lover will not feel guilty of leaving his love alone in the world as if he didn’t care for her. The same expectations expressed by her in the ending lines of the song show that as if she is telling him that even I would have felt similar if I had died and had left you alone behind in the world.

We feel sorry for the loss of her loved one in the song which summons the flood of melancholy (and the music adds more to it) but there is this feeling of great relief when we understand that she too reciprocates and consoles our lover for his unnecessary guilt, which is what makes us realize that their love has actually crossed the boundaries of reality, materialism from the world.

We leave the song on the note of understanding that sharing of similar feelings, the reciprocity of emotions has tied their love beyond the limits of reality.

The most important aspect of this song is the musical composition by Gryffin, the melancholy of Marina’s voice and Model Child’s voice with her makes the song full of honest and pure emotions.

This is the song about the nature of love we expect while being in the world with that special one whose absence will literally bring the feeling of loneliness and longing. But the song also points out that the love we always long for is not that materialistic, physical in reality. It is only the influence of reality which makes us to believe that the love needs some media to experience. The song further proceeds to question the immaterial nature of love and its interaction with material world and the escapement required for love from the materialistic aspects of life.

(And even though the song has a male and a female voice generally highlighting two lovers of same age group; The song can convey same emotions for other love relationships too.)

Bonus: Thanks to the existence of Gryffin in our generation, there is also an Orchestral Version of the Song, (This is like real roller coaster of emotions)

References:

Aldous Huxley Image Source from Wikipedia

Featured Image of Heart Nebula captured by Rick Wiggins, Heart Nebula, IC1805

A simple, soulful song pointing towards the philosophy of Absurdism

Undone and its (deep) philosophical consequences!

Myth of Sisyphus

Nihilism and Sisyphus

Existentialism, Absurdism and Sisyphus

Absurdism and Undone

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Remembering one the soulful artists – Jim Croce

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Part 2 – Viktor Frankl’s Logotherapy for Humanity

Answers from Logotherapy

Why? Why does the life bear “a meaning”, “a purpose”?

How? How one discovers the purpose

1. Creating a work or doing a deed

2. By experiencing something or encountering someone – Power of love

3. By the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering

What? What is life according to the logotherapy?

1. Pain

2. Guilt

3. Death

The Super-meaning – why does the meaning exist?

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Realization of the limitations of life

The Last lecture by Randy Pausch – The lecture and the book

The need for the lecture and the book

The highlights of “The Last Lecture”

The brick walls

The concept of head fake

Intellectual Humility

Value of time

Collaborate with different types of people

Sustainable and long-term thinking

Contingency plan – “All you have is what you bring with you”

Get a feedback loop; and listen to it.

Create a legacy, Cheat death

Legacy- The cycle breaker

P.S. – One of the most important and experience shared by Randy that I loved was his quote in the early part as follows:

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IF I LEFT THE WORLD- The Song

The Search and The Care

The Haunting Loneliness

The Selfless Love

The Flights of Poetry and Love

The Regret

The longing for escape

The Silver Lining of Reciprocity

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