I have often pondered this question and have often come to a conclusion related to my responsibilities or to my desire to do something new and exciting. I have answered with simple things like "to smile" or "to love".

In my opinion, none of these answers is adequate. When you think about it, this is the question that we are all ultimately trying to answer in our daily persuit of knowledge and wisdom. This is the answer that is sought by philosophy and science alike.

So what is your answer? Why did you wake up this morning?

So what is your answer? Why did you wake up this morning?

I have often pondered this question and have often come to a conclusion related to my responsibilities or to my desire to do something new and exciting. I have answered with simple things like "to smile" or "to love".

In my opinion, none of these answers is adequate. When you think about it, this is the question that we are all ultimately trying to answer in our daily persuit of knowledge and wisdom. This is the answer that is sought by philosophy and science alike.

So what is your answer? Why did you wake up this morning?

I am more talking about on an intellectual and metaphysical level.

That and Ive started smoking pot again for breakfast.

Why did you wake up this morning?

Because my son needed a new diaper and he let us know in no uncertain terms

I'm not being glib -- we get up because we are motivated by things. People who have clinical depression often lack motivation and often just lie in bed. The two go hand in hand.

Lying in bed awake is not waking up.

Agreed. We may not be able to reflect on the reason we get up and do things, but all healthy people do it. This was one of Camus' major questions -- how, why do we even live when it can all just be randomly wiped away in a second?

If I were you I'd read The Myth of Sisyphus if you haven't.

We don't just lie there and starve to death. But if we really and truly apprehend how absurd life is, how meaningless it is, then why is it that we still go on? It doesn't really matter how you yourself get through it -- this is philosophy, Kenneth, philosophy is about generalization and not about case reports.

Oh, I have read it. And I have commented on it several times on this forum. Camus poses the question, why don't we commit suicide? And his answer is that since there is no reason to do anything, there is no reason to commit suicide. But, I think that before considering that answer (if that is the word) we should take a long look at the question. The question supposes that there is a reason for not committing suicide. But what could that reason be outside of any context? The question would be like asking me, out of the blue, why don't I go to Mozambique tomorrow. The question makes no sense without a previous context. A person who was suffering from unmanageable pain who is going to die soon could sensibly be asked that question, since there is a context, and a possible reason for his committing suicide. But there is no such context in Camus's question. There is the customary philosophical assumption that what makes sense in the concrete must make sense in the abstract. In the way that the question, "Why don't you go to Mozambique tomorrow?" would make sense in the concrete, but not in the abstract. In philosophy, look first at the question. Then you might not need to search for an answer. I don't think that life is absurd. Why should I? It isn't. And, even if it were (in some sense I know not what) why would it be correct to commit suicide? The thing to do would be to make it (or, at least one's own) less absurd.