Camus & Claypool

I'm teaching a class on Existentialism this term.  We've been reading Camus for the past couple of weeks.

Of all things, Camus got me thinking about John Claypool's "dream."

John Claypool said,

“I dreamed I died physically, moved through a dark tunnel, and came out into what can best be described as ‘kindly light.’ There was no visible object or figure, only a great sense of warmth and acceptance. Then a Voice said, ‘Welcome, my child, I want to ask you some questions.’”

“I stiffened in fright and thought to myself, ‘Here comes the judgment and my condemnation.’”

“But the Voice said, ‘First, I want to ask you, can you weep over all the mistakes you made, over all the pain you have caused other people, over all the ways you have failed to live up to your highest and best?’”

“I began to think about the many things in my life that were occasions for regret. Genuine tears began to come up from the depths of my being, and I cried as if my heart would break.”

“But then the Voice spoke again. ‘Let me ask you something else. Can you laugh over all the good experiences you have had, all the good jokes you have heard, all the funny things you have seen?’”

“Again, I began to remember back over all the joys of my life and started laughing as I had never laughed before, and so help me, it seemed that that ocean of light was laughing with me! If you have never heard the laughter of God, you have missed something absolutely ecstatic.”

“Then the Voice spoke yet again. ’I need to ask you one more question. This wonder of aliveness—do you want any more of it? Do you want to go on living?’”

“I remember thinking that there was no predestined answer. I really did have a choice. I pondered slowly all the pain and pleasure that I had known from living, and then from the deepest place in my being I said, ‘Yes! Yes, I do want some more of it!’”

“With that the Voice exclaimed delightedly, ‘Come, then, you blessed of the Father and enter into the joy of your lord. Plunge deeper in and further on,’ and with that I swam off into the ocean of light.”

_______________

Then, I tried to imagine what Camus might say to Claypool.

This dream is deeply evocative, filled with rich images of life’s dualities: joy and sorrow, hope and fear, light and darkness. While my philosophy does not entertain a personal God or an afterlife, the symbolic elements of Claypool’s dream touch on something essential—the confrontation with existence in its fullness and the active choice to embrace life despite its pain.

The Voice in the dream, asking whether Claypool can weep and laugh, points to what I might call an acknowledgment of the absurd. To weep over mistakes and the pain one has caused is to confront the imperfections and tragedies of human life head-on, without denial or illusion. Similarly, to laugh is to affirm life’s fleeting joys, its capacity to surprise, and its moments of beauty. In these gestures—tears and laughter—we see a revolt against despair, an embrace of life’s contradictions.

The final question—“Do you want more of it?”—speaks directly to the heart of the absurd man’s dilemma. It is the same question posed by Sisyphus at the top of his hill: faced with the endless cycle of struggle, would one choose to continue? Claypool’s emphatic “Yes!” mirrors the spirit of defiance and passion I have long admired. To live is to choose again and again, even when aware of life’s inherent lack of ultimate meaning.

However, where Claypool finds his answer in a divine presence and the promise of eternal joy, I see the choice as rooted in this life alone. The “ocean of light” could be a metaphor for the vast mystery of existence, into which we swim each day with courage and without guarantees. In Claypool’s affirmation of life, I recognize a kinship with my belief that the absurd is not something to be escaped but something to be embraced—fully, deeply, and with every fiber of our being.

In the end, Claypool’s dream, with its interplay of weeping, laughter, and choice, aligns with what I might call the human condition at its most profound: the need to confront our mortality, accept life’s absurdity, and yet affirm it with open arms. While our paths diverge—his toward faith, mine toward the absurd—our shared longing for aliveness binds us together.