A Limerick about Berkeley
There once was a man Bishop Berkeley,
Esse est percipi! he'd state starkly.
Being a theist,
subjective idealist,
meant all disagreed with him sharply.
An Absurd Fate
Let us proceed now and discuss
the absurd fate of Sisyphus,
a character who'd been condemned
to (ceaselessly and without end)
a rock upward a mountain roll
(to reach the top that was his goal)
but whence, at last, he'd reach the summit,
downward again the stone would plummet!
Since it would evade control,
this burden of our tortured soul.
Unvaried, devoid of meaning
this fate it did have all the seeming
of an average human life
to dear Camus, who did write,
that man's existence is the same
as Sisyphus's futile game.
We rise, work, and return to bed,
and over same old paths do tread;
difficulties don't give way,
and pointless tasks do fill each day.
So similar are both our fates,
absurd is each, make no mistake.
But Sisyphus we're told broke free
by accepting the absurdity
of the state to which he'd been confined
and (Camus says) likewise mankind,
much contentment can obtain
by accepting its disdain.
For no fate has badness so unbounded
that it cannot be surmounted by scorn.
