Hello, hello, hello my beautiful friends.

Welcome back to the podcast. Some fun and exciting things are happening in the Ginn household. We’ve got a couple of vacations coming up, and we are moving! Not too far, still staying in the Austin area- we’re moving about 20 min down the road. We’re super excited, it’s a great location and the kids are over the moon bc we will have a pool for the first time. And, like I talk about all the time, the experience is 50/50- 50% is exciting, fun, I get to use a lot of my creativity in decorating. And the other 50% is very stressful. I’m very fortunate that my husband is who he is and is pretty much taking care of all of the loan stuff, so I can focus a lot on the move logistics- we make a great team! And it’s still really stressful. There’s some grief around leaving our current home. It’s been a wonderful home and we’ve so loved our time here. And just to give you all an example of how I practice what I preach, the other day the thoughts were LOUD and chaotic- all of the what if’s, all of the unanswerable questions, all of it. And I was starting to feel VERY overwhelmed. And so I took a pause. I went outside and stood in the grass with my bare feet, and I reminded myself just who the fuck I am. The conversations went like, “I hear all your fears and all your concerns. But we don’t react to those the same way that we used to. We have a VERY long and distinguished list of things we weren’t sure would ever work out, that have (in fact) worked out. So, I can rely on myself and my family to figure it out. We no longer negotiate with “what if’s,” we address the things in front of us, and trust ourselves to take care of everything else.” So when I talk about learning how to coach yourself, that’s what it can look like in real time. It doesn’t take the stress and the uncertainty away, it’s not supposed to. It’s supposed to ground me enough so I don’t have to be at the mercy of the stress and uncertainty. And once I have the reigns back, I get to decide how I want to show up in my life. Which, is such a beautiful segway into today’s topic, if I do say so myself. 

Today we're talking about a philosophical framework called absurdism.

And before anybody starts panicking that I've suddenly become a philosophy professor, stay with me.

Because despite the intimidating name, I think absurdism may be one of the most practical emotional frameworks for surviving infertility that I've ever encountered.

In fact, the more I've thought about it, the more I've realized that a lot of what I teach is already rooted in absurdist ideas. I just hadn't been calling it that.

So today I want to talk about what absurdism is, what it isn't, and why I think it has something important to offer those of us navigating infertility, IVF, loss, uncertainty, and all of the unanswered questions that come with them.

Because at its heart, absurdism asks a question that infertility patients know better than almost anyone:

What do you do when life refuses to explain itself?

One of the most common questions I hear in infertility is:

Why?

Why is this happening?

Why me?

Why now?

Why this diagnosis?

Why this miscarriage?

Why did that embryo fail?

Why does everyone else seem to get pregnant while I'm still here?

And if we're being honest, most of us aren't actually asking for information.

We're asking for relief.

We're asking for certainty.

We're asking for some explanation that would finally make all of this feel understandable.

Because many of us carry an unconscious belief that sounds something like:

"If I could just understand why this happened, then I could finally make peace with it."

If I knew why.

If I had the answer.

If I understood the reason.

Then maybe I could move forward.

Maybe I could stop hurting.

Maybe I could finally have closure.

And today I want to gently challenge that idea.

So, what Is Absurdism? That’s a great question, I’d love to tell you. 

Absurdism is most commonly associated with the philosopher Albert Camus.

Camus noticed something about human beings.

We are meaning-making creatures.

We desperately want life to make sense.

We want fairness.

We want logic.

We want reasons.

Especially when we're suffering.

When something painful happens, our minds immediately begin searching for explanations.

What caused this?

What does it mean?

Why did it happen?

How do I make sense of it?

And unfortunately...

the universe appears completely uninterested in providing answers.

Camus called the collision between those two realities "the absurd."

The human need for meaning.

Meeting the world's silence. 

And once you understand that idea, you start seeing it everywhere.

Why did I lose the pregnancy?

Why did the transfer fail?

Why did this happen to my family?

Why did cancer happen?

Why did my marriage end?

Why did my loved one die?

The absurd isn't the tragedy itself.

The absurd is realizing that there may never be an explanation that satisfies us.

Honestly, infertility may be one of the most absurd experiences a person can have.

You can do everything right.

Follow every instruction.

Take every supplement.

Show up to every appointment.

Spend tens of thousands of dollars.

Do all the things.

And still end up with no baby.

Meanwhile someone gets pregnant accidentally.

Someone else gets pregnant on the first try.

Someone else gets pregnant after forgetting to take their prenatal vitamins for six months.

It's absurd.

Not funny absurd.

Philosophically absurd.

It feels unfair.

It feels irrational.

It feels deeply, profoundly nonsensical.

And our brains hate that.

Because our brains are constantly trying to solve the puzzle.

If I can understand it, maybe I can control it.

If I can explain it, maybe I can prevent it.

If I can make sense of it, maybe I can finally feel okay.

Several years ago I recorded an episode called The Closure Myth.

And honestly, this episode feels like its older, slightly more philosophical cousin. 

In that episode, I argued that closure is largely a myth.

That peace doesn't come from gathering enough information.

That grief doesn't end because we finally understand what happened.

That more information doesn't necessarily create peace. 

Absurdism takes that idea one step further.

It asks a harder question.

What if the explanation never comes?

What if there isn't a satisfying answer?

What if reality never explains itself?

And here's the sentence that has been living rent-free in my brain:

Closure is a myth because reality was never obligated to provide an explanation in the first place.

I know.

Just let that sit for a second.

Because I think many of us have unknowingly entered into an unspoken contract with reality.

The contract sounds like this:

"I'll be okay once I understand."

"I'll move forward once I know why."

"I'll find peace once this makes sense."

And infertility keeps refusing to sign the contract.

I think one of the cruelest things infertility does is force us into a courtroom where there is no judge.

We keep presenting evidence.

We keep building a case.

We keep asking for a verdict.

Why this diagnosis?

Why this embryo?

Why this miscarriage?

Why me?

And the courtroom just stays empty.

No verdict.

No explanation.

No closing argument.

Just silence.

Not because your suffering isn't real.

Not because you don't deserve answers.

But because reality was never obligated to provide them.

And that realization is terrifying.

Because if there is no explanation coming...

then what?

Camus believed there were three responses to the absurd. 

The first is denial.

Pretending things make sense when they don't.

Insisting that everything happens for a reason.

Inventing certainty.

Using magical thinking to avoid uncertainty.

The second is nihilism.

Nothing matters.

Everything is pointless.

Why bother?

And if we're honest, most infertility patients have probably visited that neighborhood at least once.

The third response is what Camus called revolt.

And revolt is where things get interesting.

Revolt is the willingness to look directly at reality and say:

This hurts.

This is unfair.

This makes no sense.

And I refuse to let that stop me from living.

Not because I've solved it.

Not because I've accepted it.

Not because I suddenly like it.

But because I refuse to spend my entire life waiting for reality to explain itself before I'm allowed to have a life.

Now here's where I think people often misunderstand absurdism.

Absurdism is not nihilism.

Absurdism does not say that nothing matters.

In fact, I think it says something much more empowering.

Maybe meaning isn't something we find.

Maybe meaning is something we create.

I don't believe infertility happened so that I could start a podcast.

I don't believe there was some cosmic lesson hidden inside my suffering.

I don't believe the universe looked down and said:

"Let's give Emily infertility because someday she'll become a coach."

No.

I think infertility happened.

And then I created meaning from it.

The podcast is meaning.

My coaching work is meaning.

The relationships I've built are meaning.

The women I've had the privilege of supporting are meaning.

The person I've become is meaning.

I didn't discover those things buried inside infertility.

I built them.

And that distinction matters.

Because if meaning is something you create, then it remains available to you even when life makes absolutely no sense.

Camus uses the story of Sisyphus in Greek mythology.

A man condemned to roll a giant boulder uphill forever.

Every time he reaches the top, the boulder rolls back down.

Again.

And again.

And again.

It's a ridiculous task.

An impossible task.

An unfair task.

And Camus ends his essay with one of the most famous lines in philosophy:

"One must imagine Sisyphus happy." 

It suggests that we can find meaning and joy not by achieving a final goal, but by bravely embracing our daily struggles and taking ownership of our own existence in an indifferent universe. 

So we imagine Sisyphus happy, not because the boulder disappeared.

Not because the task became meaningful.

Not because he finally understood why.

But because he stopped negotiating with reality.

He stopped demanding that reality justify itself.

And somehow, in doing so, became free.

Now, I want to be really clear.

Absurdism isn't pretending things don't hurt.

It's not toxic positivity.

It's not bypassing grief.

It's not saying everything is fine.

Your grief still gets to exist.

Your anger still gets to exist.

Your heartbreak still gets to exist.

The absurdist response isn't:

"This doesn't hurt."

The absurdist response is:

"Of course this hurts."

"Of course this is unfair."

"Of course this makes no sense."

And then sometimes, after acknowledging all of that, you find yourself laughing at how utterly ridiculous the whole thing is.

Not because it's funny.

But because reality has become so outrageously unreasonable that humor itself becomes an act of rebellion.

The grief is still there.

The amusement is just armor. 

Closing

Maybe the goal was never understanding.

Maybe the goal was never closure.

Maybe the goal was never getting the answer.

Maybe the goal is learning how to live a meaningful life in the absence of one.

Because the universe may never explain itself.

The transfer may never make sense.

The loss may never feel fair.

The diagnosis may never feel justified.

You may never get the explanation you've been searching for.

And yet the question remains:

Who do you want to be anyway?

Who do you want to be while reality refuses to answer?

Because peace may not begin when the explanation finally arrives.

Peace may begin the moment you stop demanding one.

Not because the grief disappears.

Not because the longing disappears.

Not because the boulder disappears.

But because you stop waiting for reality's permission to live.

And you start living anyway.

And maybe that's the deepest act of defiance available to any of us.

To love anyway.

To hope anyway.

To laugh anyway.

To build meaning anyway.

In a world that never promised to make sense.

Alright, my beautiful friends.

That's what I have for you today.

Take such good care of yourselves.

And I'll talk to you soon.