Society promotes always doing the right thing. We base, or most of us base our doings on that idea. We try to be polite; we try to be correct; we try not to be offensive. Things that we do but don't know why we do it. Things that we assume to be good. And to me, a humorist is that little voice that asks why to all the little and insignificant things in my life that I do without knowing why. Alain de Botton argues that humorist's job is not merely to entertain but “to convey with impunity messages that might be dangerous or impossible to state directly.” Society allows humorist to say what they want to say because they do it in a way that makes you question his attitude towards it. Due to the way humorist presents himself, it becomes hard for people to take it seriously. Humorist, plays the character between right and wrong; They say things that societies ignores. Which is why humorist is not seen as rude but honest.
I remember the first time I saw Dave Chapelle on youtube. I think he was speaking about the. I laughed and laughed until I was out of breath. It became addictive. I watched until there was no more videos to watch. It wasn't until I ran out of things to watch did I realize why I was so into his shows and why it made me laugh so hard. He spoke about the everyday things that people do without a reason. The things society teaches you to do. Things you often wonder why but you never proceed to find out. He occasionally mocks the way society is. He teaches people about stereotypes by making fun of it. None of which is illegal but all of them are offensive. Offensive because it is true. And not everyone in this world could handle being offended. Therefore I, and I believe many others respect humorists for their - crudely states – balls
It isn't the jokes that make them so interesting though. Everyone thinks about the things humorist says. They think about it and they often question it. People do think about the. But no one has the ''balls” to say it. No one wants to point out the stupid things we do in life. Yes, humorist serves a vital function in society but not necessarily for the issues they point out but rather for their attitude towards such issues. The care free and happy-go-lucky attitude they have about things such as racism and sexism helps people bond together in a unique way. Thus through a show they learn about each other and become more acceptable through laughters.
Monday, February 28, 2011
Monday, January 31, 2011
The Absurdity in Death
As I grow older, I develop more personality and gain more knowledge I have realized that the thought or the idea of death has crossed my mind countless time; I think it has crossed many other people’s as well. What I am speaking of here is not suicidal tendencies. It is whether or not death should be feared. Despite the many things people say to get themselves feel better about the situation of dying, in the end, it always comes down to whether I have accomplished the many things I wished to have accomplished during my lifetime. The fear of dying before achieving all you desire in this lifetime scares most people which is what I believe to be the prime cause of fearing death. I understand where most people are coming from, but if you would just take a look around you’ll understand the one thing we know about death -- the one thing we can never really know. It is that death will come for everyone and there’s no way of predicting when, where and how.
We know very little about death. This fact makes our perspective fairly important on how we view death. Three philosophical approach to death and life could categorize the different perspective: Existentialism, Absurdism and Nihilism. Existentialism is about the finding and creating meaning even though meaning is meaningless. Absurdism is about the paradox between people’s attempt and failure in finding meaning. Nihilism is about understanding that creating meaning is useless. Each of these philosophical beliefs are too complicated for me to go into however, I believe that absurdism best explains life in terms of death.
Absurdism emphasizes on that things simply happens to people, that nothing has any meaning. Anything could happen to anyone at any time. It is as if the death and life has the same meaning. Absurdism is the attempt to find a different meaning for life, a more meaningful one but fails because none of these meaning will make a difference in life. I understand if the idea is hard to grasp which is why I have the perfect example. The Stranger by Albert Camus is a short novel which depicts the life of an absurdist. The novel shows the realization and growth of the absurdist character. The novel is truly a piece of work because it has the essence of a true absurdist. The novel won the Nobel prize 1957 and Albert Camus died in an car accident 3 years later, making Albert Camus the perfect example. His death explains the human inability in finding meaning in life, ergo things happen, and nothing has any meaning. Being the shortest-lived Nobel Prize winner, the irony in that is almost strange and even freaky. So basically, even if you have achieved everything in life, death will still come and get you.
Despite all I have said, it is necessary to fear death to some extent for people to function normally in this world. It is impossible to progress if everyone has a indifference attitude toward death and therefore life. The idea of what I am trying to convey here is hard for many to understand because the absurd is a paradox and so is death. Death is absurd because the many perspective we have about death. To talk about the absurd with absurdity is quite difficult for me to explain thoroughly without writing a whole book about it. But what I really am trying to do here is to expose you all to absurdism through death and hopefully you will all make further connections to life and all other things in it.
We know very little about death. This fact makes our perspective fairly important on how we view death. Three philosophical approach to death and life could categorize the different perspective: Existentialism, Absurdism and Nihilism. Existentialism is about the finding and creating meaning even though meaning is meaningless. Absurdism is about the paradox between people’s attempt and failure in finding meaning. Nihilism is about understanding that creating meaning is useless. Each of these philosophical beliefs are too complicated for me to go into however, I believe that absurdism best explains life in terms of death.
Absurdism emphasizes on that things simply happens to people, that nothing has any meaning. Anything could happen to anyone at any time. It is as if the death and life has the same meaning. Absurdism is the attempt to find a different meaning for life, a more meaningful one but fails because none of these meaning will make a difference in life. I understand if the idea is hard to grasp which is why I have the perfect example. The Stranger by Albert Camus is a short novel which depicts the life of an absurdist. The novel shows the realization and growth of the absurdist character. The novel is truly a piece of work because it has the essence of a true absurdist. The novel won the Nobel prize 1957 and Albert Camus died in an car accident 3 years later, making Albert Camus the perfect example. His death explains the human inability in finding meaning in life, ergo things happen, and nothing has any meaning. Being the shortest-lived Nobel Prize winner, the irony in that is almost strange and even freaky. So basically, even if you have achieved everything in life, death will still come and get you.
Despite all I have said, it is necessary to fear death to some extent for people to function normally in this world. It is impossible to progress if everyone has a indifference attitude toward death and therefore life. The idea of what I am trying to convey here is hard for many to understand because the absurd is a paradox and so is death. Death is absurd because the many perspective we have about death. To talk about the absurd with absurdity is quite difficult for me to explain thoroughly without writing a whole book about it. But what I really am trying to do here is to expose you all to absurdism through death and hopefully you will all make further connections to life and all other things in it.
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