Life is not a problem to be solved ...

One of the greatest films of all time, The Seventh Seal, written and directed by Ingmar  Bergman in 1957, tells the story of a medieval knight travelling through a plague-ridden land. He encounters Death and resisting its call offers to play chess in exchange for more time – until he doesn’t lose, at least, he can continue on living. Finally standing face to face with his  own mortality, he takes this opportunity to make one final attempt to find an answer to life’s  greatest question.

What is the meaning of it all? And is there a God? But, of course, the answer that he  is looking for has never been found.

The horror that our protagonist is describing is what the philosopher Albert  Camus termed “the Absurd”. As Camus put it, (quote) In other words, we seek to lead a meaningful life, follow a reasonable path, and yet the world just  doesn’t turn our way – our plans get constantly struck down by a life that does not care about our  desires. This tension is the Absurd – one way to overcome it, is accepting religion, the belief  that nonetheless all is part of an overarching meaningful plan, even if we can’t fully  understand it.

To Camus, this means accepting an illusion – and in the film we see the evil  that this illusion leads to, like people willing to mutilate their own bodies in repentance,  thinking that the plague is a sign of God’s wrath, and a town dehumanising, torturing and finally  executing a young girl, believing that the Black Death stemmed from the devil inside of her. Like our protagonist, a disillusioned knight who  has fought in the crusades, his cynical squire is suspicious of how the priests use society’s fears  to fuel their own power and influence over it: Rather than fall into the arms of the priests, the squire opts to accept the absurdity of life.  As a young girl burns on the stake for sins that she couldn’t have possibly committed, he asks: According to Camus, this is the answer – accepting  our helplessness and the emptiness of life, but with no despair.

Whoever manages to achieve  this, he calls “the absurd hero”. Such a person would stop the never-ending conquest of a  supposed capital-letter Meaning and simply enjoy their life amidst the absurdity. What they  would do, is freely decide how to lead life and consequently craft their own little meaning. 

But given the horrors of life and the supposed meaningless of it, how could we not succumb to  despair? One answer is to look on life through the lens of humour. Or perhaps, we can look at life like an artist and  cherish the moments of beauty so that they will encourage us in moments of terror.

And all the while, do our best to have fun. But what if Camus is wrong and our despair is mistaken? What if, nonetheless, there is a God  or a meaning to be found?

According to Sören Kierkegaard, this question is a trap – reason will  never take us to an answer, there’s always doubt and the possibility of error. Rather, he advises  a leap of faith, a decision that there’s a God and we should live in accordance with his plan, or  decide there’s no God and live in accordance with our own. On the end of the day, he says: (quote) Or as Ludwig Wittgenstein, deeply influenced  by Kierkegaard’s philosophy would put it: So, when the final hour does strike,  there is nothing to be learned, no great revelation but a simple end to life. 

Once more, our protagonist turns to despair, but not his squire. And so it ends, with no mystery being  solved, for there never was one. To end on another quote by Kierkegaard: We can only tread blindly.

We don’t  know where we’re going and why. But while we’re on the way there, we better  make the best out of our journey. Thanks for watching.

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