The Profound, the Trivial and the Absurd

I’ve caught myself seeing the mundane and the profound coexist in the same setting and marvelled at how it doesn’t even make us bat an eyelid.

At a recent vigil in honour of the Easter bombing victims in Sri Lanka, I was part of a small gathering on the beach. This was a solemn occasion, but to the people gathered there the focus was more on ensuring that the candles stayed lit in the breeze, to position oneself in a way to maximize the chances of appearing on camera and blindly following the directions of the press photographers. If this wasn’t bad enough, I saw someone taking selfies as well. All of this at a gathering to honour the death of about 300 people. Most people took this behaviour as par for the course — we truly are living in the theatre of the absurd!