At first the atom was only a nucleus surrounded by electrons and only the electron was weird. Like a modern bisexual, it could be a particle one moment and a wave the next, depending on who was making eyes at it. And, like a modern celebrity, it did not exist at all if no one was looking. This was disturbing, but at least the nucleus was as solidly dull and dependable as a GP in a market town. Then the supposedly solid nucleus was found to teem with weird particles. It was a particle zoo. No, these were all actually the same particle – the quark. So there are only two elementary particles, the electron and the quark. Except that there are two heavier electrons, the muon and tau, and six types of quark – up, down, strange, charm, top and bottom (sometimes known as truth and beauty). There are also superquarks known as squarks.
And, apparently, atoms, which should be the basis of everything, account for only about 4 per cent of the universe. The other 96 per cent is missing – but it is probably 25 per cent dark matter and 75 per cent dark energy. The scientists explain gravely that there is not enough gravity. Dark matter is certainly no laughing matter.
Even the void, the last cloister, is no longer chaste. It appears that emptiness is not empty and stillness is not still. The firmament is a ceaseless churn of matter turning into antimatter and back again. Even matter itself is incorrigibly unstable and restless, endlessly trying to become its opposite and then dissatisfied with that too.
And the weird micro is weirdly mixed up with the weird macro due to a weird phenomenon known as quantum entanglement, which means that a quantum event on earth may instantly change things in some distant galaxy.
But the galaxies do not appear to be keen on entanglement. Apparently the stars are fleeing from us ever more rapidly. And who could blame them after their first contact with humans in space? The most spectacular and absurd quest in human history was the landing of men on the moon. Not even Kafka and Beckett working in collaboration could have come up with such a sublime fable. This event initiated so many of the key features of the age – the new privileging of image over content (the landing offered no benefits other than pictures, but the pictures were more valuable than the moon rock), of differentials over absolute values (the USA’s real purpose was to land on the moon before the USSR), and of means over ends (men went to the moon to show that it was possible to go to the moon).
This was also the first global media event and the apotheosis of modern technology. Almost 600 million people watched on TV, none aware of the frailty of the technology or how close it came to failing. The lunar module overshot its landing site and the navigational computer, which had less power than a contemporary mobile phone, developed a double hernia under the strain, producing the error message ‘1202’, a message no one had ever seen before. Imagine tearing across the surface of the moon, with the fuel gauge reading close to zero, and being offered as the solution 1202. Men with a philosophical bent might have interpreted this message as conclusive proof that God has a great sense of humour. But the astronauts had neither the inclination nor the time for such thoughts. Neil Armstrong had to assume manual control and watch impossibly rocky terrain rush past as the fuel ran out. With just ten seconds of fuel left he found an area flat enough to land on.
The 600 million watched and waited. And waited. Was Neil surveying the terrain, checking the equipment or agonizing over his first words? Perhaps he was overcome by terror at his insignificance in the cosmos? None of these. Neil was doing the dishes, tidying up. An orderly man, he spent the weekend before the flight dismantling and reassembling his dishwasher at home.
Eventually Neil emerged, followed by Buzz Aldrin, who lingered for what seemed like an eternity on the steps of the module. Was Buzz more sensitive than his companion to cosmic terror and awe? No, he had merely paused to enjoy a piss. And this may have been a rebellious act, like deliberately peeing in a swimming pool, because Buzz was originally supposed to be first out and was still unhappy at being demoted. So when he eventually got down on the moon and was ordered to photograph Neil he refused, with the excuse that he was ‘too busy’300 – and the only photograph of Neil on the moon is the one taken by Neil himself showing his reflection in his companion’s visor. This is another example of the power of differentials and the negativity bias. As one of his fellow astronauts put it, Buzz resented not being first more than he appreciated being second. In fact, he had achieved unique distinction – he was the first and probably the only man to huff on the moon (and, better still, he got his crap hot in the Sea of Tranquillity).
Buzz had many sources of grievance, for instance the unflattering underwear supplied by NASA. When he got back to earth after coming close to death on the moon, his first words to his wife were, ‘Joan, would you bring me some Jockey shorts tomorrow morning?’301 And, as a consequence of NASA’s three-day debriefing, the astronauts missed the media storm, which Buzz presciently understood to be the real event.
The media excitement was unprecedented. A Reverend Terence Mangan published detailed architectural plans for a church on the moon and the Hilton hotel group considered building an underground moon resort (based on a prediction that the moon would soon be the most popular honeymoon destination),302 while the Nepalese nation was outraged at the violation of the resting place of the souls of the departed and the Union of Persian Storytellers believed that storytelling would never be the same again.
And the Apollo photographs revealed for the first time the insignificance of the earth – a tiny marble lost in an infinity of black. On the moon Armstrong discovered that he could eclipse earth merely by raising his thumb. ‘Did it make you feel really big?’ he was asked. ‘No, it made me feel really small.’303
Armstrong remained stable after going to the moon but Buzz Aldrin sank into alcoholism and depression.
Depression is often the fate of the modern personality – greedy, attention-hungry and resentful, always convinced of deserving more, always haunted by the possibility of missing something better somewhere else, always smarting at lack of recognition and always dissatisfied. It is necessary to find again the classical courage and humility of Sisyphus who does not demand gratification but knows how to turn to advantage whatever the gods have decreed, and how to make every activity its own reward. Sisyphus is happy with the absurdity and insignificance of constantly pushing a rock up a hill.
Of course, he grumbles now and then. The rock could have been less jagged and the hill less steep. On the other hand, rock and hill could each have been more harsh. And there is much to be grateful for. Nothing in his sentence obliges him to use a particular path and there is an infinity of paths to match the eternity of the task. So, even as he seeks out the perfect way, he hopes secretly never to find it. Nor is he forbidden sideways motion, when the rock could almost be said to roll itself. And if it all gets too much he can appear to lose footing or grip and let the rock roll back down. Then the heavens will darken and crackle with divine displeasure – but Sisyphus can merely shrug and display empty, roughened palms.
Frequently he pretends to be stuck and turns his back to the rock, apparently to push harder – but really rock and man are supporting each other. At such times he falls into a reverie, often remembering his wife and developing a tender erection. Often, too, he will attack the rock with sudden force, propelling it all the way to the summit in a single, shrieking, manic rush. The gods hate such insolence – but what can they do? And, of course, there is the moment of release on the summit, always anticipated and, if never quite as rapturous as the promise, still a moment to savour. Is there any reason for him to descend as precipitately as the rock? None whatever. He strolls down with provocative insouciance by varying zigzag routes. How the gods glower in impotent wrath! This task, supposedly changeless, in fact has infinite variation.
Even if all variation were forbidden, there would still be his deepening relationship with the rock. As his hands come to know every outcrop and hollow, the rock seems to grow more responsive, more understanding, more cooperative. And who would hav
e believed that frail human hands could smooth away such jaggedness? Of course, there are bad moments when the rock is obdurately unmoving and Sisyphus curses and even strikes it. But, at other times, the rock is blithe, even skittish, rolling easily and playfully, as though teasing him. At these times his touch is a warm, light caress.
All this the gods observe in growing disapproval. They, too, can be cunning and subtle. One day, they say, ‘Sisyphus, we have watched your ingeniously varied labours with increasing admiration. And we have decided to ease your heavy burden. Here is a much better rock.’ Stupefied, Sisyphus looks back down to see a rock considerably smaller and so smooth and spherical he can almost feel its curves fitting his hands as it rolls effortlessly up the hill. He is unable to speak. The gods wait, in malign assurance, and then add, not without satisfaction, ‘Did you believe that eternal hard labour would set you free? No man may escape the agony of choice.’ Still Sisyphus does not reply. Now his rock feels heavier, a deadweight, burdened suddenly by its awkwardness, imperfection and bulk. Then, all at once, the glory of the human creature – contrariness – floods his soul with intoxicating vinegar and piss. He can defy. He can refuse. He can say no. Or rather, in arrogance and humility, rebellion and acceptance, absurdity and happiness, with a loving slap, ‘This is my rock.’
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank Jennifer lies for giving me the original idea for this book, Emily McLaughlin for advice on quotations, Jennifer Christie, Kerri Sharp, and Kirstie Addis for many invaluable suggestions and my wife, Martina, also a keen student of absurdity, for much crucial research.
And I would like to express my gratitude to an institution – Camden Council Libraries. There are frequent complaints nowadays about libraries failing to stock new books but Camden libraries had almost all the recent books I needed and, when I requested arcane volumes from the Reserve Stock, library staff gladly trudged down to the vaults to fetch them. This is a public service to cherish.
Notes
1 Derek Mahon, The Yellow Book, Gallery Press, 1997
2Quoted from The New York Times in the Observer, 17 May 2009
3Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Collected Writings of Rousseau, University of New England Press, 1994
4Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition, University of Chicago Press, 1958
5John Stuart Mill, Autobiography, Penguin, 1987
6Gustave Flaubert, Extraits de la Correspondance, Editions du Seuil, 1963
7ibid.
8Immanuel Kant, Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, Hackett, 1981
9Friedrich Nietzsche, Also Spracb Zarathustra, Ernst Schmeitzner, 1885
10Sally Brampton, Shoot the Damn Dog, Bloomsbury, 2008
11Erich Fromm, The Fear of Freedom, Routledge, 1942
12Quoted in Henri Troyat, Tolstoy, Doubleday, 1967
13Inge Kjaergaard, ‘Advertising to the Brain’, Focus Denmark, 2008
14Quoted in Barry Schwartz, The Paradox Of Choice: Why More is Less, HarperCollins, 2004
15Martin Lindstrom, Buyology-. How Everything We Believe About Why We Buy is Wrong, Random House Business Books, 2009
16Plato, Pbaedrus from John M. Cooper and D.S. Hutchinson (eds.), Plato: Complete Works, Hackett, 1997
17Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Penguin, 1964
18Quoted in Robert Bly, The Sibling Society, Hamish Hamilton, 1996
19Quoted in Karen Armstrong, Buddha, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2000
20Sigmund Freud, Collected Papers, Hogarth Press, 1970
21Juan Mascaro (trans.), The Dhammapada, Penguin, 1973
22Quoted in Karl Jaspers, Socrates, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus: the paradigmatic individuals, Harvest, 1966
23Quoted in Armstrong, (2000) op. cit.
24Quoted in Jaspers, op. cit.
25ibid.
26The statistics are in John Micklethwait & Adrian Wooldridge, God Is Back How the Global Rise of Faith is Changing the World, Allen Lane, 2009
27Spinoza, Ethics, Hafner Publishing, 1966
28ibid.
29ibid.
30ibid.
31Spinoza, Ethics, Everyman, 1993
32Quoted in Antonio R. Damasio, Looking for Spinoza, Vintage, 2004
33Quoted in Henri F. Ellenberger, The Discovery of the Unconscious, Penguin, 1970
34Arthur Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Idea, Dent, 2004
35Arthur Schopenhauer, Essays and Aphorisms, Penguin, 1970
36Nietzsche, (1885) op. cit.
37ibid.
38ibid.
39ibid.
40ibid.
41ibid.
42Joseph LeDoux, The Emotional Brain, Simon & Schuster, 1996
43Kenneth M. Heilman, Matter of Mind: A Neurologist’s View of Brain-Behavior Relationships, Oxford University Press, 2002
44J. Cohen et al, ‘Separate Neural Systems Value Immediate and Delayed Monetary Rewards’, Science, 306, 2004
45Quoted in Erich Fromm, Marx’s Concept of Man, Ungar, 1961
46Fiona Macdonald, ‘A Truly Captive Audience’, Metro, 4 February 2009. The quote is from Felix Paus, founder of Videogames Adventure Services. Another company offering similar services is Spy Games. The websites are www.semagoediv.com and www.spy-games.com
47Survey quoted in The New York Times, 28 October 2007
48Julian Baggini, Complaint: From Minor Moans to Principled Protest, Profile, 2008
49For instance, www.unboxing.com
50Alain de Botton, The Art of Travel, Random House, 2004
51David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, Abacus, 1998
52This tendency was first identified by Erich Fromm, who defined it as the ‘marketing orientation’, the obligation to market oneself as another commodity: ‘since success depends largely on how one sells one’s personality, one experiences oneself as a commodity or rather simultaneously as the seller and the commodity to be sold. A person is not concerned with his life and happiness, but with becoming saleable.’ In Erich Fromm, Man For Himself, Routledge, 1949
53The three who have found these innovative ways to fame and fortune are William Burroughs, Damien Hirst and Ozzy Osbourne
54Seneca, Moral Essays, Loeb Classical Library, 1989
55Aurelius, op. cit.
56Seneca, Moral Essays, Loeb Classical Library, 1989
57ibid.
58ibid.
59Aurelius, op. cit.
60ibid.
61Epictetus, The Discourses, Loeb Classical Library, 1989
62Aurelius, op. cit.
63Matthew 10:34
64Matthew 7:28
65Matthew 12:11
66Matthew 22:21
67Fromm, (1942) op. cit.
68Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, Routledge, 2003
69Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness Unto Death, Princeton University Press, 1951
70Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, Philosophical Library, 1956
71Sartre, (2003) op. cit.
72Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, Penguin Classics, 2000
73ibid.
74Samuel Beckett, Happy Days, Faber, 1963
75Jonathan Haidt, The Happiness Hypothesis, Heinemann, 2006
76Nicholas Epley & David Dunning, ‘Feeling holier than thou’, Journal of Personal and Social Psychology, 79, 2000
77For instance, Richard Layard, Happiness: Lessons Prom a New Science, Penguin, 2005
78Walter Mischel et al ., ‘Predicting adolescent cognitive and self-regulatory competencies from preschool delay of gratification: Identifying diagnostic conditions’, Developmental Psychology, 26, 1990
79Richard Easterlin, ‘Explaining Happiness’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 100, 2003
80Schopenhauer, (2004) op. cit.
81Leon Festinger, A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance, Stanford University Press, 1957
82Quoted in Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts, Pinter
& Martin, 2008
83This statistic is hard to believe but it is quoted in two scrupulously researched books – Carol Tavris and Elliot Aronson, Mistakes Were Made (but Not by Me): Why We Justify Foolish Beliefs, Bad Decisions and Hurtful Acts, Pinter & Martin, 2008; and Francis Wheen, How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World, HarperPerennial, 2004
84Susan A. Clancy, Abducted: How People Come To Believe They Were Abducted By Aliens, Harvard University Press, 2005
85Louis Menand, ‘The Devil’s Disciples’, New Yorker, 28 July 2003
86Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace, Penguin, 1957
87For instance, Daniel Nettle, Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile, Oxford University Press, 2005
88Arthur Schopenhauer, Parerga and Paralipomena: Short Philosophical Essays, Oxford University Press, 1974
89Nettle, op. cit.
90D.T. Lykken & A. Tellegen, ‘Happiness is a stochastic phenomenon’, Psychological Science, 7, 1996
91J.B. Handelsman, New Yorker, 16 September 1996
92Steven Rose, lifelines: life Beyond The Gene, Vintage, 2005
93David Blanchflower & Andrew Oswald, ‘Is well-being U-shaped over the life cycle?’, Social Science & Medicine, Vol. 66, Issue 8, April 2008
94Richard Layard, Happiness: Lessons From a New Science, Penguin, 2005
95V. Medvec, S. Madey, T. Gilovich, ‘When less is more: Counterfactual thinking and satisfaction among Olympic medallists’, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 69, 1995
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