The author discusses the topic of the absurdity of lives; this debatable topic has been worrying many people, and Thomas Nagel takes responsibility to express his opinion about it. He states that the reasons in defense of the statement that life is absurd do not explain and support this claim; therefore, he wants to prove a controversial statement – life is not absurd. The author asks the audience an interesting question: “If their mattering now is not enough to accomplish that, how would it help if they mattered a million years from now?” (Nagel, 1971, p.716). Indeed, people tend to search for a more significant meaning in their actions; they want the activity to be mattering after a long time; otherwise, it is not worthy. The writer says that people simply cannot know what will matter in a million years. (Nagel, 1971, p.717). He does not understand why they need to know the mattering of something later if mattering in the present moment is enough.
When digging deeper into this discussion, I suppose that Nagel wanted to present the importance of living in the present moment rather than thinking about what particular action might matter in the future. I agree with the writer’s point of view because any action completely matters in the present, but no one knows about its matter a few years later. Any action done in the present affects the future. However, there is no need to anticipate; knowing about certain consequences is enough. This theme has been discussed many times in different books, academic works, and plays; I would like to provide a quote from the book that echoes Nagel’s work: “Don’t be the one who wakes up the next day regretting having not taken that last dance with a loved one or even with yourself.” (Edwards, 2018, p.215). In this way, I think that Nagel wanted to present his readers with the idea that if every action they do matters in the present, life cannot be absurd.
References
Edwards, E. (2018). Nothing sexier than freedom. Sexy Freedom, LLC.
Nagel, T. The absurd. (1971). The Journal of Philosophy, 68(20), 716-727. Web.