Work Text:
Submitted on: May 29, 2026
Philosophy, Question No.2: What consolations does philosophy offer?
The Penguin, People & Pursuit
Literature is limited by interpretation—words printed onto paper or what’s left behind in one’s thoughts. While its reader remains in the role of an observer,absolved of any responsibility it transfers. Pages offer distance, philosophy uses it to its advantage to point toward reflection. As a commentary that urges participation—appraisal or criticism—it doesn’t remain static when interacting with its audience. By sourcing itself from recognised patterns in human experience, philosophy depicts the experienced world and the interactions within it and answers with its own schools of thought. Beyond useful observation, its statements gesture an individual toward recognising and confronting existence’s weight.
But for philosophy’s counsel to be considered, philosophy makes use of writing’s intimate simplicity to regard and expose the multifaceted person. Existentialism particularly triumphs in conveying the feeling into words to relate and console its audience. Indirectly stating that regardless of era, chaos and contradiction within existence are the cause for pain. This nature is a known struggle yet its appearance is imposed as linear yet often disrupted by reality: to console means for suffering to have first been in place. Existentialists prioritise individuality, with the conviction that there is choice because of it.
While in the observable present, consolation is found in the modern audience identifying itself with a penguin. Werner Herzog, documented the solitary penguin in Encounters at the end of the World. The penguin made its appearance as a peculiar sight in the tundra. It intentionally separated itself from the colony and instead made its way toward the mountains. Realistically, there truly was no reason to march because every physiological need was in the direction it walked away from. Still, it chose the mountains. The audience first to witness the penguin, failed to reconcile with it and entitled it pointless. The penguin’s pursuit picked up again this year and resurfaced as a meme, above the penguin’s small form is the text: “but why?” Gaining traction and empathy for its pursuit, the modern audience recognises itself in the penguin: both are beings on a path with a purpose in a world that doesn't consider either. The nature of the penguin’s pursuit holds a mirror to existence’s inherent senselessness. Such a notion invites reflection on whether suffering is a fundamental aspect to the very definition of existence. And if existence is merely the state of being, then living is shaped by the presence of suffering and becomes the pursuit of meaning. This way, the distinction between existence and living begins to take form—not as separate conditions, but as intertwined experiences defined by engagement and interpretation.
When questioning the nature of pursuit, one inevitably uncovers and is then pained by the unsettling possibility that existence itself may lack a set foundation. As Camus details it most clearly in The Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays, to be “The Absurd” in his philosophy of absurdism. His critique discards the initial belief derived from Greek philosophers that refer to life’s problems as something to be won over by scientific optimism. To define importance in existence, Camus questions the validity of scientific and logical statements, stating the whole of life to be purposeless due to its absurdity. When all answers lead to unsupported conclusions, the form consolation takes in Camus’ interpretation is that absurdity can be faced by integrating oneself or turning away from it completely. Despite the senselessness in the perpetual rise and fall of Sisyphus and his boulder, the process—albeit fruitless—still offers direction and is more valuable than completion’s finality. Consequently, satisfaction is derived from the idea of a task. Suffering then evolves, not as prevention to attaining happiness, but as a known and constant factor of existence. Camus concludes existence—with whatever tangible progress made, is immediately—as still pointless, and so is the penguin’s pursuit of the mountains. While failure is the abandonment of pursuit, the capability for success is made possible by consolation—provided by the presence of choice.
Further dissecting existence into its bare mechanisms is essential to understanding when existence begins to be pointless and why the need for consolation arises. Modern existence is dyadic—separated between the need for basic physiological survival and the intangible fulfillment of the psychological. Despite being split, they often overlap in interest and cause instability when they cannot be reconciled. To Kafka, a role—albeit adding to futile performance for a not entirely promised goal—is to have an identity and consequently, stability. This position acts as a validation of knowing one is needed. Yet it is conditional and heavily relies on measuring importance based on contribution. Once an individual recognises that existence is reliant on utility, absurdity presents itself once more. It then creates a need to go further and succeed, proving that their role in the process is irreplaceable.
When work is removed, effort is rendered unnecessary. Its response: the absence of comfort in roles causes one to be alienated. The concept of alienation that Kafka refers to is presented more clearly in Metamorphosis, found in being made aware of this absurdity as a sole individual. Much like Kafka’s central character being diminished into an insect, one is reduced to an abnormal state. There is never any assurance of an individual’s significance. The uncertainty shows when taking into account the unpredictability of the external world. Each person lives the same reality though interacting and functioning at differing perspectives that creates a sense of isolation. Such a condition is made more acute by the failure of expression. Where inner experience fails to be translated into speech creates a disconnect in experiences and deepens the estrangement. Kafka laments that never truly being understood is the curse that comes with individuality. And so, the penguin’s climb is fated to be misunderstood. Its pursuit has been simplified: without physical product, the process and the role are nullified.
The truth of existence—whether penguin or human—that philosophy agrees upon is that existence is as pointless as its finite, and only in indulging with the absurd is this futility made worthwhile. A fixed amount of time makes the desperate rush toward product greater than the attention paid to the process, the same goes for the initial observation of the penguin’s pursuit for the faraway mountain. Realistically, the pursuit is pointless because it neglects survival as a purpose and doesn't yield a certain physical product. The penguin would sooner die than reach its peak yet it chooses the mountains. Camus expresses this cyclical nature of absurdity by likening it to Sisyphus’ punishment. Upon reaching the peak of the hill, two things are certain: almost succeeding in pushing the boulder to its height and for it to roll back down again. In this, absurdity makes satisfaction temporary and finality becomes elusive to the hands that grasp it. For a product—satisfaction, happiness, or both—to be the sole metric of purpose would only be cause for despair when not attained. The product always promises an ideal. Whereas process, as both Camus and Kafka refer to, is what inputs importance into achievement. For the penguin, there is no other option that it can make besides choosing the mountain. Because to return is to be met with alienation while continuation becomes the consequence of happiness or comfort but rather the proof of one’s struggle toward it. This choice of persistence despite the disadvantage is philosophy’s primary comfort: the variety of perception.
Just as the penguin unreasonably yearns for the mountains, humanity is enamoured with the relentless search for meaning that no tangible objects can offer. If the penguin marches toward the faraway peak, humanity creates the ideal of perfection to climb after. While the necessity for consolation emerges, not as a failure of reason but as its limit. Rational comprehension collapses under existence’s vastness and creates the isolation experienced by the individual. Dostoevsky observes that between the two there is a dissonance softened only by consolation. But, as he later on suggests, pain is an affirmation deliberately chosen over the passivity of prolonged comfort. Though consolation is sought after to endure existence, what it offers doesn't satisfy the restlessness in humanity. It only remains a temporary solace from existence that one is subjected to.
The penguin and the individual are then led to a paradox: the need for consolation as a buffer against the rawness of existence versus the inevitability that alienation poses when choosing to live. This presented nature destroys and forms the center of individuality—perpetually reshaping role and process. Humanity triumphing in logic and enlightenment means it is equally capable of irrationality, self-destructivity, and unpredictability to simply prove it as possible. Though the antithesis of humanity’s imperfection—a perfected and completely rational society—is what Dostoevsky fears most. Entirely removing fault within humanity is to withdraw what fills its essence. The unintentionally that flaws are, is necessary in the process of arriving at a choice. While the consolation that philosophy provides the step toward choice.
In acknowledging the human restlessness to find existence’s reasoning, Nietzsche responds not with despair at its vastness but with an invitation to embrace it. He refers to the human being as an animal aware of its own insignificance. And being aware of it leads to searching for the same pattern outside of itself, leading the audience to identify with the penguin alongside its pursuit. All the while the invention of past, present, and future are constant sources of possibility and torture. Consolation’s basis then progresses from a temporary softening force to becoming the point for agency.
Amor Fati is Nietzsche’s radical concept of acceptance. It is the enthusiasm to understand it as a temperamental existence, rather than blind optimism or passive submission in surrendering to it. To Nietzsche, the challenge that existence poses is met with passion for endurance. Along with the pain that life inflicts, proves that it cannot be approached with the rushed pacing intended for a problem with an immediate and universal solution. Nietzsche rouses an immobilised audience by recognising individual depth and the hope to further it. When agency is executed through choice, the penguin relays itself with the most clarity: no matter the outcome, the pursuit is its purpose. Loving existence despite it being the evident source of pain becomes an intended practise and a consolation to continue.
Humanity paces alongside the penguin’s gait and recognises that both are bound to face existence’s pain. Though pain is cause for consolation it has no reasoning for why it exists—only that it will always be inevitable for the human person. One will be conceived in it, be consoled through it, and die with it. Pain will always be present alongside existence’s chaos and consequent solitude. Humanity and the penguin suffer its condition that leads both to seek a pattern within senseless suffering, then meaning when there is none. Whether or not either were the first or last in this pursuit is irrelevant: it only matters that both have the choice to. The constant pursuit of purpose attests to the philosophy’s offer of consolation: choice. Existentialists celebrate pain, its unreasonable nature as proof of freedom and mediation by choice. In fulfilling the response to an internal conversation, it recognises that choice will always be present.
Humanity comforts itself through its own solitude in the ability of choice, which is the consolation that existentialist philosophy offers. Philosophy accesses autonomy and succeeds in urging its reader to agency—returning control to the individual—wherein it is extracted from its still pages to present. Though it doesn't assure ease toward existence, philosophy’s consolation—within the constant that is suffering—is not an escape from suffering but the condition that makes meaning possible within it. And in choice, one must dare to be more than what existence immobilises—to choose and reach farther, even despite the weight. Just as the penguin will always choose the mountain, humanity will always choose existence, and philosophy will continue—giving hope enough to push to choose and what becomes of it. By exposing the profound disconnect between modernity and the inner desire for significance, philosophy comforts by transforming suffering from a paralysing burden into the very condition that makes freedom possible.
Word Count: 1998
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