Absurdity and Angst: Exploring Two Moods of Being

A meditation on absurdity and angst — two moods that shape our search for meaning in a silent, indifferent universe.

If absurdity is the slapstick humor existence offers, angst is its silent fog — something existence must occasionally walk through.

Arun Kumar

Summary: We explore the quiet tension between absurdity and existential angst — two moods that arise from our search for meaning in an indifferent universe. Through personal reflection about happenings in life, we examine how absurdity may provoke laughter or resignation, angst lingers as a fog of unease, demanding deeper contemplation.

Perhaps it is just me, but I know and feel absurdity far more viscerally than angst. Absurdity leaps out from the folds of daily life, often with a kind of comical clarity, while angst lurks in the shadows — diffuse, elusive, harder to name. Absurdity is the punchline of reality’s joke played on us; angst is the quiet dread that there may be no joke at all to enliven the circumstance.

Let us begin with definitions. Absurdity, as the dictionary puts it, is “the quality or state of being ridiculous or wildly unreasonable.” It arises from the mismatch between our expectations and what reality delivers — a jarring incongruity that prompts us to mutter, “This is absurd.” And indeed, examples abound.

You go to the beach on a sunny day, no forecast of rain, and yet a rogue cloud builds directly overhead. Within minutes, you are drenched, scrambling to save your belongings from a ten-minute deluge. Absurd.

You drive forty minutes to a warehouse store for a couple of bottles of Chianti Classico you have recently come to enjoy. But the shelf is empty for the first time, and just when you were looking forward to savoring its aroma that evening. The long drive, the time spent, and the thwarted anticipation all seem absurd.

You leave early for a doctor’s appointment, carefully navigating unexpectedly heavy traffic, and arrive just in time only to wait another hour because they are running late. The whole sequence of events feels absurd.

These moments are neither tragic nor deeply consequential, nor are they particularly unsettling. They simply remind us of the universe’s indifference to our intentions. Absurdity arises from the collision between our desire for order and the world’s refusal to cooperate. It is a microcosm of what Albert Camus described as “the confrontation between the human need for meaning and the unreasonable silence of the world towards that need.” The absurd lies in the persistent, unanswered need for meaning from the very universe that made our existence possible.

Angst, by contrast, is harder to pin down — at least for me. The dictionary defines it as “a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general.” It is a vague sensation that, even when everything appears normal, something ominous looms just beyond perception. It is not fear of anything specific, but a diffuse uneasy sense that something is missing, though you cannot quite say what.

Real-life examples of angst are harder to enumerate, less accessible than those of absurdity. You wake up on a Sunday morning with no obligations; you look forward to enjoying a day without commitment. An hour later, however, you start to feel a strange restlessness. You aimlessly wander through the house, pick up a book, put it down. You do not quite know what to do with the time affluence the day has offered, and its weight feels heavy. That is the feeling of angst.

You have reached retirement after decades of work, financial planning, and anticipation of life ahead. The calendar is open, the pressure is gone, and yet… a strange unease sets in. You wonder: What now? What will give my days a meaning without deadlines or deliverables? The feeling is more than boredom; it is a deeper disquiet, a sense that although some essential ingredient is missing, you cannot quite name it. That is angst.

You are awake at 2 a.m. — not jolted by a nightmare but stirred by a vague sense that something is not right. You lie there, staring at the ceiling, turning over your relationships, your choices, your future. There is no crisis, no clear problem, just a quiet, persistent unease. You feel untethered, as if the ground beneath your life is shifting, or might shift without warning. That is angst.

If absurdity is the slapstick humor existence offers, angst is its silent fog — something existence must occasionally walk through. Angst does not announce itself with thunder or empty shelves; it drifts in during moments of stillness, when the scaffolding of what once seemed certain, or desirable begins to tremble.

Now, what of existential angst?

The term “existential” refers to our existence — the finite slice of time between birth and death. It is a span so brief it barely registers against the vast backdrop of cosmic time. The absurdity of existence is, in some ways, is easy to grasp: all that we do in that fleeting interval — our struggles, ambitions, joys, and suffering — seems to amount to nothing in the end. We build, we strive, we love, we win, we lose, and then we vanish. The universe that made our existence possible does not blink, and that indifference feels absurd.

Existential angst is the emotional response to recognizing the absurdity of our condition. It is the unease that arises from realizing that life holds no inherent meaning. It is not merely the fear of death, but the disquiet of living without a guaranteed purpose. It is the sense that something essential is missing, perhaps justification for existence itself.

Unlike absurdity, which often provokes laughter or resignation, existential angst invites reflection and can lead to a quiet despair born of not knowing what to do, or how to make sense of our existence.

Perhaps, in the future when instances of angst occur, when the fog rolls in, it will be worth pausing and internalizing such events. Over time, this practice may deepen our visceral understanding of angst and help us grasp its contours more clearly.

And, by understanding it better, we may find a way to live in peace with it.

Ciao, and thanks for reading.

 

A Bus Ride in Tuscany

On a Tuscan bus ride, a retired traveler reflects on aging, mortality, and the quiet wisdom of an eighty-nine-year-old companion.

Wisdom cannot be captured in words. It lives in the way we choose to find joy and meaning.

Arun Kumar

Summary: A reflective essay set on a bus ride in Tuscany, where we contemplate aging, mortality, and joy through the quiet presence of an eighty-nine-year-old fellow traveler. Retirement, time affluence, and the joy of lived experience converge in a meditation on how to shape meaning in the later chapters of life.

I am sitting in a bus travelling down some highway in Tuscany. It feels oddly formal to call this a vacation. Since retiring in early 2025, my days — unlike the tightly scheduled ones of working life — have taken on a loose, fluid rhythm. In theory, I am perpetually free. The calendar is mine to shape. I am, as they say, the master of my own domain.

Yet the word “vacation” [vacacioun, “freedom from obligations, leisure, release” (from some activity or occupation)] carries the scent of escape — a vacating from something, a sanctioned pause from toil, a brief reprieve from the relentless pursuit of productivity. But in retirement, when the calendar is no longer crowded and the demands have softened, what exactly am I escaping from?

Perhaps some words just become a matter of habit. Perhaps their continued use is an inertia that becomes a part of our psyche. And so, the term “vacation” persists — not because it fits, but because it gestures toward a shift, a departure, a moment of intentional difference. Maybe trips like this will always wear that label.

This trip to Italy is our first formal journey since my retirement. We chose an arranged tour which is an act of deliberate surrender. After years of self-planned travel, this was a planned outsourcing of effort. Let someone else manage the trains, the hotels, the museum tickets. Let us simply be passengers, not planners. And so, we find ourselves on a bus with forty-eight other souls.

Among our fellow travelers is Margaret. She will turn eighty-nine in a few days, and when she does, we will all gather to sing “Happy Birthday” to her. But even before the celebration, Margaret has already become a quiet beacon. She is not merely present — she is luminous. There is something in her bearing that draws my attention, something both inspiring and elusive.

Watching her, I begin to wonder: What is her perspective on life? What does the day ahead mean to someone who has lived nine decades? Does she wake with plans, or with a quiet openness to whatever the day may bring? Does her mind drift far into the future, or does it mostly rest in the now — because at her age, “far into the future” is no longer be a meaningful concept.

And what of joy — does hers carry the weight of mortality, or has that awareness becomes a kind of liberation? A quiet acknowledgment: I do not have many days left, so why not savor what remains?

I am sixty-seven. Twenty-two years younger than Margaret, and I feel the gravitational pull of her presence — an invitation to imagine my own future self. If I am fortunate enough to reach her age, how will I view the days that remain? Will I sip wine with the same anticipation I do now? Will I still seek novelty, or will I find comfort in repetition? Will I fear the end, or will I have made peace with it?

These questions accompany me as we drive from Montecatini to Cinque Terre, the Tuscan hills rolling past the window like a slow procession of time. I find myself half-listening to the guide’s commentary, half-drifting into reverie. I imagine sitting with Margaret at a seaside café — coffee and croissant between us, the Mediterranean breeze tousling our hair. I would ask her about her inner landscape. What has changed in her thinking over the years? What has softened, what has sharpened? What does she know now that she did not at 67?

Perhaps she would tell me that joy becomes simpler with age. That the grandeur of ambition fades, and the small pleasures — sunlight on stone, the taste of a ripe peach — are the pleasures one seeks. Perhaps she would say that mortality, once feared, has become a quiet presence. Not ominous but liberating.

Or perhaps she would say nothing at all. Perhaps her wisdom cannot be captured in words. It lives in the way she looks at the world, in the way she smiles at her fellow passengers, in the way she chooses to be delighted.

In contemplating Margaret, I am really contemplating myself and my future self. Retirement has given me time affluence, but affluence did not come with wisdom on utilizing it. For not to be wasted, it must be shaped and questioned. And so, I ask: How do I want to age? Not just physically, but philosophically and spiritually. What kind of an older person do I hope to become? In doing that, I want to learn her secret.

As the bus winds its way toward the coast of Cinque Terre, I feel a quite gratitude. For accidentally knowing Margaret. For Tuscany. For the awareness of questions that have no easy answers. For the serendipitous chance to imagine a future self who is not afraid of endings, but who finds a beginning in each day.

In a few days, we will all disperse to go our own ways and will say farewells. The vision of Margret will be my memory from this vacation.

Ciao, and thanks for reading.

When Boundaries Fade

Cultivate a quiet union
where the boundary
between self and world
dissolves.

In that stillness,
life and death
unfold as one continuum—
our passing
no more than the act
of stepping through
a door.

 

Letters from a Retirement Community (7): The Pivot-Ready Life and Building an Adaptive Retirement

When plans dissolve, a pivot-ready life turns disappointment into opportunity, especially in retirement.

To pivot well is to anticipate the need for alternatives before the moment demands them.

Arun Kumar

Summary: This essay explores the importance of living a pivot-ready life in retirement — one prepared to embrace change, adapt to physical and cognitive shifts, and find meaningful alternatives when plans fall through.

I went to bed last night with the quiet thrill of anticipation. Morning would bring pickleball, a cherished ritual, a rhythm, a gathering that is part of my days.

In the 55+ community where I now live, the pickleball court is more than a place to play. It is a social commons, a budding café, not unlike an Italian bistro where locals sip espresso at the counter, exchanging stories and laughter before the day unfolds. Here, we seasoned souls gather, each with a paddle in hand and a tale to share — the latest Viking cruise; a new grandchild; a trip to the ER.

But this morning, nature had other plans. A soft drizzle was falling, not dramatic, just enough to dampen the court and cancel the game. I lingered over my Earl Grey and scrambled eggs, hoping the clouds might relent. They did not. And so, with three hours of open time and no paddle in hand, I found myself in a familiar but often underappreciated situation: the need to pivot.

To pivot is to adapt. It is not just to react but reorient. It is the art of finding alternatives when well thought out plans and routines dissolve. It is having a mental muscle that turns disappointment into opportunity. In the forward march of time, especially in retirement, pivoting is an essential skill to have.

Consider the vacation meticulously planned, only to be rained out. Pivot: visit museums, explore bookstores, linger in cafés. Or the restaurant you arrive at without a reservation, only to be told the wait is an hour. Pivot: have a list of nearby alternatives, perhaps even a hidden place you have been meaning to try.

Retirement, more so than others, demands a pivot-ready life. The pace of change accelerates — not because the world spins faster, but because our bodies and minds begin cascading through transitions with unnerving speed. What once felt stable now seems provisional. A minor ache becomes chronic condition. A twisted ankle on the pickleball court can derail a budding athletic renaissance. A vibrant friend last month now walks with a cane. These shifts unfold not over decades, but within seasons.

And so, we must prepare to pivot. A pivot-ready life is not a life of compromise; it is a life of necessary adaptation. If overseas travel becomes too taxing, explore the treasures of your own region. Visit the botanical gardens or historical plantations you have driven past a hundred times. Attend a local play. Take a day trip to a nearby town and walk its streets with fresh eyes.

The danger of not pivoting is more than just facing boredom, it is the risk of existential drift. When plans collapse and no alternatives are there, the void through time feels heavy, suffocating. Time turns oppressive. The mind folds inward, not in reflection but in rumination. In retirement, depression often begins not with trauma, but with the quiet inertia of not knowing what to do that makes living interesting.

To live pivot-ready calls for planning, not in the sense of rigid schedules, but a flexible mindset attuned to change when circumstances shift. If pickleball slips beyond the reach of physical capability, perhaps bocce ball offers a gentler alternative. If the gym feels solitary or uninspiring, a walking group might bring both movement and companionship. And if physical activity begins to wane, it may be time to pivot toward cognitive engagement: reading, writing, joining a book club or a writer’s circle. The key is to remain open and be prepared.

This principle applies not just to daily activities but to the grand transition into retirement itself. Leaving a career is one of life’s most profound pivots. The structure, purpose, and social interaction that work provides must be replaced. A new routine must be built. A new meaning must be cultivated. New relationships must be nurtured if retirement comes with moving to a new location.

To pivot well is to anticipate the need for alternatives before the need arises. It is the wisdom of parking downhill when you know the road ahead may require a push. It is the foresight to stock mind’s pantry with ideas and interests one can follow.

This morning, after the drizzle had made its quiet claim on the court, I sat for a moment in disappointment. But then I remembered the gym. I changed clothes, walked over, and spent the next few hours moving, breathing, recalibrating. The disappointment dissolved. The day was not lost; it was reimagined.

To cultivate a pivot-ready life begins with reflection. What activities bring you joy? Which activities will become physically too demanding, and which will be cognitively nourishing? What social connections can be deepened, and what solitary practices can be embraced? Make a list, try things out. Rotate. Revisit. Keep the list handy and revise it often.

In the end, retirement is not a static phase. It is much more dynamic than we might have anticipated. It is a time of great freedom, yet, like all freedom, it comes with responsibility. The responsibility is to plan to stay active, pivot as necessary, and have fun.

And so, as I sip my tea tomorrow morning, I will look out at the sky not with expectation, but with alternatives in hand. If the court is dry, I will play. If it gets wet, I will pivot. Either way, the day will be mine.

And that, I have come to believe, is the essence of a well lived retirement life.

Ciao, and thanks for reading.