Attention potential employer types:
ah, don't bother reading any of that below (i assure you it's all lies! in fact you should probably ignore most of what's on this site, since some of it might be a little tongue in cheek...)
instead have a look at this curriculum vitae of mine.
my name is karl and sometimes i do stuff that i might put on a website and bleh - i don’t wanna write about me and you have no reason to read about me either so let’s talk about Albert Camus instead.
The Myth of Albert Camus
As a young lad in Algeria, Camus used to spend a lot of time at football goalie practice by pushing a big ball up a hill, letting it roll down, then pushing it all the way up again. Day in day out he’d repeat this, ever the same until one cold winter’s morning he was struck by a terrible fear and trembling in a naked lunch moment and probably some other literary reference for good measure; as all of a sudden he thought to himself:
“Hang on, this is shit.”
Camus had begun to realise that football, just like every other sport, is a pointless waste of time. And as he’d also soon discover, so is everything else - art, music, literature, cinema, politics, religion, philosophy, money, power, friends, family, Nobel prizes and accepting a lift off your publisher. (But mostly football. That really is pointless shit.)
The futility of existence would hang heavy on a lesser man’s heart, but for Camus this realisation was liberating: “Nothing I could ever do would truly be meaningful or worthy. The bleakness of the void that is the human world will surely swallow up and spit out into dust any pathetic attempt to defy the inevitability of uninteresting, insignificant death...
“Mind you, if I write a few books about this and act all aloof and moody at parties like a Curehead or Fall fan, then I bet I could totally score with some hotties coz of this.”
And so our intrepid hero set off for the Parisian literary scene where he was hailed as a mighty wordsmith, a stand-up guy when it came to fighting Fascists and Communists alike, and of course as a prime set of bones to be jumped upon by the young ladies of an intelligentsia persuasion.
All indeed seemed to go to plan, except of course when you actually think about it. I mean, you could write any old bollox you like if you just doll it up in fancy bigwordisms then dumbass intellectuals will read whatever they want into it and go “Oh yeah, isn’t it so amazing?” and all agree with each other just to reinforce their own needy, insecure sense of self worth and elitism (cf. James Joyce fans); as for slagging off Commie & Nazis, well duh - anyone who believes in anything is an idiot, and politics is right up there with religion. It’s like shooting fish in a barrel - with a feckin gatling gun - to point that out: “Your entire dogma is based an false premise that fails to grasp the fundamentally chaotic nature of humanity, let alone that of the planet which they inhabit, ya thick fuckin eejit.”; and as for the girls, well it hardly takes a JCB to pick up the champagne soaked floozies from the Arrondissement d’Amour Libre...
So yeah, Camus failed. He knew everything was pointless in the first place, yet set himself a simple life affirming challenge regardless, and the ensuing pyrrhic victory stands as testament and caution to any fool wishing to venture down a similar path.
I however, am miles better than ol’ Albert and I’ve worked out the flaws in his scheme, so as I start my quest I just know I’m going to win.
First: don’t present your work to idiots who might stupidly think they understand - or worse like it - they don’t and never will. All humans are rubbish when it comes to this kind of thing and if any of them think they like it they’ll start ruining it by expecting you to do more and keep them happy and entertained and start all that whole rigmarole and bollox all over again. Best off to just post your stuff to the uncaring void of the internet:
“Here’s my new opera, a reworking on a theme from classical greek tragedy...”
“Meh, we’d rather look at cats that look like hitler and child pornography and stuff - that’s what we like here.”
“All of old. Nothing else ever. Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. EPIC FAIL LOL TL;DR LMFAO WTF QWERTY LOL smiley feaces etc”
So straight away the audience fucks off and leaves you with no reason to do anything other than you can and want to.
Secondly: Albert had a right old laugh taking the piss out of and shooting Nazis, arguing with people who thought Communism was cool ages after he was into it, even having a go a few of his Anarchist friends too (well, probably - y’know what Anarchists are like) and generally mouthing off at people for claiming things that are clearly shite.
Now, if during all of this he had just left it at “Ah you’re all wrong, ye shower of gobshites...” that’d be fine (and correct), but he didn’t, he followed that up with “...coz I am right, I know better than you do and my ideas are great, ye should all listen to me instead.”
But you shouldn’t. He made an awful mistake early on is his whining-about-everything career by rejecting Nihilism, just coz he thought it was a bit sad and depressing. Sheesh.
If he had bothered paying attention he’d have found that yes, when all absolutes are rejected and the previously held ideas of society, humanity, existence and truth itself are revealed to be nothing more than fragile constructions from statistically selected aspects of shared experiences as filtered, bio-chemical perceptions from flawed humans in an ever changing environment; when all this certainty of the past is suddenly put to question for any sense of validity, then the potential for fatalist despair arises.
But only if that is where you stop.
To continue the logical progression, the only way out is through and nihilistic flippancy is just the tool to shake the foundations of so much of this archaic dead weight that keeps us rooted in the dark ages. If a god, or socio-political idea, or persona of some dead writer can actually be threatened by some playful mocking, then how can it stand up to some genuine intellectual investigation? If an idea can only perpetuate through artificial protection against such questioning, then surely that’s a falsity of the highest order and needs to be destroyed. Which is why everything must be prodded with the sharp end of this nihilistic inquiry, as this is how we begin to strip away what falls apart so easily and are left only with the constructions of our reality that are sound enough to still be standing and applicable to the humans of today and realised for what they actually are.
But more importantly, a nihilistic attitude in writing is a superb way of elucidating on a abstract philosophical point with an overly elaborate vocabulary, only then to underscore it with crude colloquialisms; but Camus couldn’t even do that, the gobshite.
And thirdly, his ultimate goal in life was to impress some french girls by acting aloof, dressing in black and smoking?! (This is definitely a million percent true, so no need to go looking any of this up.) I mean c’mon, if you’re going to set yourself a life goal, it’s got to be something you have to work towards, not just something you could easily sort out one weekend in Paris with a bottle of absinthe and a blasé attitude towards venereal disease.
A much better life goal would be a bit more specific and aim for the top girls in world. Which are of course:
Getting a good smooch off of all them would be miles better than all the fame, fortune, respect, power, Nobel/Grammy/Pulitzer prizes that all you regular people waste their lives trying to achieve.
I’m way more humble than all you stupid humans, I don’t need all that 'celebrities in tuxes at gala award ceremonies' crap. I just want to do loads of brilliant stuff, and then have these 5 hotties find out about it somehow, find out that it was all because of them and be all impressed and say “So hey baby, wanna wrestle?”
After which, I think I can go and die and rot into dust and be happy, because at that stage I’ll have won at life.
And that is why I am better than Albert Camus.
QED.
Addendum: I may even be able to skip over having to do all that boring crap of trying to make words/music/films/arts n stuff and get straight to the point if I succeed in getting the UN involved in my dastardly scheme.
Although in order to be more convincing in my argument, I’ve had to replace the non-redhead Harley Quinn in favour of Elena Satine, otherwise they might see the nefarious side of my plan for a master race. It’s ok though, I’m sure she wont mind wearing the costume.
