…TO THE ABSURD…

Stage 59 / Wednesday 24 June / From Santovenia de Oca to Burgos / 24 km

 

A young person could not set off on the route this morning. The swelling she had behind her heel under the ankle was diagnosed. It’s without an immediate remedy: tendonitis, she must stop walking and rest. She was crying over the absurdity of having to interrupt her pilgrimage, which she was so set on, as she climbed into the taxi that would take her to the station in Burgos. There she would take a train for Catalonia, the province she comes from. The rest of us, pilgrims still in good shape, who had gotten to know her in the past several stages, were very sad to see her leave.

 

Thus, from one day to the next, no one knows what can happen, which is going to torment us. For the pilgrim interrupted in his quest, the first reaction is that life no longer makes sense. It touches on the absurd. I feel again the fragility of my existence in being moved by the fate of our lovely Catalan lady forced to rest. That reinforces my impression that despite the liberty that seems to be ours, our always uncertain future can make us see life darkly and may lead to despair.

 

Starting a project, not being able to finish it, undergoing the shock of separation from people one has learned to appreciate: where then does it lead us, the absurdity of an undertaking with no future? What will remain of my life if I lose all hope of future elevation? Why then should I constrain myself if no superior interest can be envisaged after the effort? I too ask myself why I should continue my walk …

 

In grumbling thus, everything seems to be in league to prove to me the absurdity of my undertaking. First it’s a pebble in my shoe that I thought was well and tightly tied! Then it’s the stink of a nearby tannery where the path enters the industrial zone of Burgos! The horror of concrete and asphalt in the city, ruining the view and raising the temperature by several degrees! The interminable distance to the hospice on the far side of this noisy city! Some pilgrims cheat and take a bus to finish this stage! Absurd! Absurd!

 

And there suddenly when I pass before the statue of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, better known in French literature under the name of El Cid Campeador (which means “The Champion Lord.”) This character is discovered in the famous tragedy of Pierre Corneille (1606-1684), written in 1636. Many, in my generation at least, know the famous dialog of Act I, scene 5, between the father and son. We learned it by heart in junior high. Don Diego: “Rodrigue, have you any courage?” Don Rodrigo: “Anyone but my father would find out on the spot.”

 

And you, pilgrim Pierre, have you got any courage? If you take the nihilist view and decide that God is absent, what will you hold tight to in order to escape from the anguish and doldrums which grip you? To your sense of honor? This would be acting like Don Rodrigo, whose triumphant statue finally gives the city of Burgos the brightness of some glorious feat . But what purpose can this sense of honor serve? Is it not also absurd? Look at the absurd number of people who died for honor during the First World War. What purpose did the useless deaths serve, if not to inflate the ego of a few last-ditch emperors and patriots?

 

Everything may seem to become absurd. On one side, the religious who tell you: “Those who exclude God are right to find the world absurd, there is no longer anything to motivate living” … On the other, the anti-religious who smother the question of God in pointing out that the religious who lean on their sacred book affirm: “God exists since the Bible says so; and one must believe the Bible because it is the word of God”! One might as well play “rock—scissors—paper” with children! I’m going round in circles again. All the beautiful words on which I base my beliefs, they too can collapse! Auto-reference, circularity, and ultimate sinking await you, once you embark in a downward spiral.

 

Thus everything bothers me today, and finally, either I must call on the calming opiate of religion, or ignoring religion, I must react myself to this fear of the absurd in turning it to derision. Thus little Johnny, who believes in nothing, says very loudly “Belief is absurd.” To which his father subtly retorts by saying, “But then, Johnny, what do you believe in?” “In nothing, since it’s absurd to believe!” says little Johnny. “Ah, you see,” says the father, “it’s not so absurd to believe in something. You at least, you believe in nothing! But explain to me, this something which is only nothing for you, is it more absurd than God in whom you don’t believe?”

 

This was the paradoxical way of the sophists in the time of Plato. Epaminondas the Cretan said: “All Cretans are liars” … but Epaminondas is a Cretan! So it’s one or the other: either Epaminondas is telling the truth and in that case … he’s lying (because a Cretan cannot tell the truth); or else Epaminondas is lying and therefore tells the truth (Cretans are indeed all liars).

 

I notice how much paradox and derision, which seem to cure the fear of the absurd, are perverse, because if they permit hiding existential anguish, they do not advance one iota toward the truth. Derision is like a toy balloon which swells, and risks exploding when it passes a certain volume. It seems that the rate of mortal accidents and suicides is higher among comedians (Fernand Raynaud, Achille Zavatta, Coluche, Robin Williams).

 

In Switzerland, a study of more than 3 million people in 2010 showed that the suicide rate of atheists (39 out of 100,000) was nearly double that of Catholics (20 out of 100,000, and this statistically questionable figure is to be compared with the fact that suicide rates in Catholic countries with strong social cohesion like Italy and Spain (6 to 7 out of 100,000 between 1999 and 2010) is somewhat inferior to that of the European Union (10 to 11 out of 100,000 between 1999 and 2010).

 

OK, enough talking about the absurd and suicide, and I’ll try to get out of my sad spiral. Would I finally be in agreement with the surrealist Jacques Rigaut (1898-1929) who killed himself with a bullet in the heart: “Life really does not deserve one’s going to the trouble of leaving it”? In arriving at the hostel of Burgos, I shave only the right half of my face where the mustache and beard have been growing since my departure. I strut around thus, explaining that I’ve left enough to protect me from the sun’s rays on the south side in walking west. Do you follow me?

 

Pierre X. Angleys, absurd half-bearded (« selfie » taken on 24 June 2005 at the Burgos hostel).