73. The Existentials – Sartre, de Beauvoir and Camus
A comment from Anne Gregory set me on to this chapter. Back in the sixties and seventies I was like a human sponge soaking up ideas, thoughts and meanings, pondering, reflecting and attempting to find some meaning and purpose. I guess that’s what many young people go through.
I’d rejected the role laid out for me, rejected the lifestyle and culture I was part of. I found myself questioning everything.
At that time I was reading avidly – everything from DH Lawrence to Kerouac, Steinbeck, Miller and Mailer to Sci-fi and philosophy. I would often devour a book in a couple of days and was browsing the second-hand bookshops for more fodder. Anything that caught my eye.
Eastern mysticism was a favourite. I liked mysticism and found the Buddhist and Hindu texts particularly interesting.
I was a scientist, very involved with pollution, conservation and psychology. Desmond Morris, Gordon Rattray Taylor, Jane Goodall and Rachel Carson found their way on my shelves (later writers like Richard Dawkins would feature strongly).
I guess I was looking for my way. I was searching for meaning. I was looking for a creative outlet – I tried art and writing. I was avoiding work with prolonged education but was shortly going to start up a career in teaching.
Death was already looming. In my 4000 week holiday in the reality of life I wanted to get to the bottom of what it was all about. Was it a spiritual quest or a meaningless happenstance? What was the best way to spend the short period of time we had between birth and death?
I’m not sure if I ever cracked it.
I simply drifted through – spending my time earning a living and raising a family, finally rejecting most of the mystical teachings, accepting a spirituality based on oneness with nature, utterly rejecting all organised religion, finding a purpose in a career in education, enjoying music, travel and reading, accepting that art was probably not my forte, and finding a creative outlet through writing. Time was short. Years streamed past.
Strangely, I was as fascinated by the philosophy of nihilism as I was with Eastern mysticism. I seem well capable of Orwellian double-think. While I was intrigued by the concept of some underlying mystical connection between all organisms and could even extend that to include inanimate substances, such as rocks, I was also well into the nihilistic concept of life being completely absurd. The older I get the more absurd it becomes – particularly when it comes to human behaviour.
Back in the sixties, alongside all manner of literature, there were books by North American Native Indians, Carlos Castenada, Milarepa, Buddhist Sutras, Bertrand Russell, Woody Guthrie and the works of Sartre, Camus and Simone De Beauvoir. They seemed happy together.
Nihilism was intriguing. Apart from the obvious absurdity of life I liked the idea that there was absolutely no purpose to it; we had to create our own purpose. I had a number of purposes that I was keen on. I liked the idea of creating. My wife was a dancer. I was a writer. But creativity could take any form it wanted. I saw creativity as creating purpose. A second major purpose was to cherish nature and further its conservation. I possessed an inherent love of most creatures (apart from spiders). Protecting nature seemed a highly worthwhile project. A third purpose seemed to be in furthering the society we lived in and moving it on to a more caring, compassionate state of affairs. Countering the greed, violence and intolerance seemed a valid use of time, fostering empathy, respect and responsibility within a framework of tolerance and permissiveness also seemed valid. Then there was the aesthetics of appreciating fine things and nurturing a taste and understanding of beauty, art and nature. I had the basis of my life. Before succumbing to death I could dedicate myself to the pursuit of these things; purposes that were spawned out of nihilism. I became a teacher, a writer, a traveller, a father, a husband, an art appreciator, a nature lover and a political/social commentator. My life had purpose.
The second nihilistic tenet that I was keen on was that of personal freedom. Instead of simply accepting the moral/social codes by which society seemed to inflict on us I chose to think through my own morals and emotional codes. It was not anarchy. I do not subscribe to that, as such. My life is built around responsibility for my actions. Some moral codes were obvious – the concept of non-violence and tolerating/respecting our neighbours, colleagues, friends and strangers and treating them the same way we ourselves would like to be treated. This meant I was anti-war, anti-racist and tolerant to a degree – I reserved the right to oppose those whose views I abhorred – fascists and racists like Trump and Farage, destructive forces that threaten the environment and political policies that create inequality in whatever form. My nihilistic stance and analysis of my reasoning certainly caused me to question god, king and country. I did not believe there was a god. I thought the idea of monarchy was merely a justification of robber barons and their imposition, tyranny and ruling by fear. While the idea of laying claim to an area of land and tribally declaring it to be a country was simply absurd. I jettisoned all patriotism, nationalism and subjugation to a class system along with the farce of god.
Nihilism has played a big role in shaping the period of existence that I spend between birth and death.
Of course, Sartre, Camus and De Beauvoir were not espousing the same philosophy. There were differences.
Sartre was more concerned with individual freedom, Camus more on the absurd and De Beauvoir on gender repression and the way society inflicted powerlessness on individuals. All equally valid in my book. I took them on board and made them my own.
Acceptance of death means that one has to value every second of one’s life. For me the presence of death is a spur. We have to get on with life and make the most of it! Is a book of death really a book of life? What am I writing?
