Shadowing Practice: A GUIDE TO ABSURDISM: The Philosophy For Living Fully - Learn English Speaking with Video
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The past year has been weird.
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Previously we were able to go through life with a fairly stable sense of reality.
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We trusted that most people were in some way like us.
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Sure, people differ in political opinion, but at the end of the day we all share some common values. That changed.
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We spent the most monotonous of moments dreaming over weekend parties and tropical getaways.
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We had a set schedule in a set world, where everything seemed unchanged and stable. That changed.
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Seemingly in one innocent moment, your sense of reality was corrupted.
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The way things worked before now don't appear to make sense.
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Perhaps it was a breakup, a layoff, a pandemic.
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Or maybe you just sat up one night, in a cold sweat, and realized that everybody's just winging it and nobody knows why we're here, what we're supposed to do, and where we're going.
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Breakfast appears alien.
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The weight of your toothbrush is unbearable.
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Any moment of decision making is met with dread and despair.
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you're experiencing what the philosopher Albert Camus called the absurd.
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Camus argues that humans have a chronic urge to understand the world.
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We use reason in order to do so.
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However, from our limited perspective, the world appears unreasonable.
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This tension between our use of reason and the unreasonable world around us creates the absurd.
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Camus explores several solutions once we reach this point.
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For one, we could simply deny the unreasonable world.
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This is a common choice, in which we pretend that the world actually makes sense, and from this pretend that we can develop and follow distinct goals that give our lives meaning.
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One example used is denying the seemingly unreasonable fact that we live just to die.
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Such a horrifying possibility can be countered with a belief
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that we live in order to be rewarded or punished in the afterlife.
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Whether we are rewarded or punished is reliant on how we conduct our lives now.
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Hence, a belief in the afterlife denies the unreasonableness of death and offers us a goal that gives our lives purpose.
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In a more secular age, we can also see this in those who believe
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that making enough money and thereby living a comfortable retirement is a reasonable way to live.
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Valuing financial security distracts us from the fact
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that we will nonetheless be financially secure in a world that still makes little sense to us.
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Almost any systematic conception of the world, from the religious to the financial to the social,
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must reduce and avoid the fact that it simply cannot account for the complexity and absurdity of reality.
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But it does make the journey more comfortable and meaningful.
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However, as Camus argues, denying the incomprehensibility of our existence reduces our freedom.
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We have tied ourselves to certain plans, and in doing so, disengage from the true totality of our being.
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Finding out that the afterlife doesn't exist would be crushing.
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Messing up your retirement plans would be existentially painful.
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Would we have the strength to move on from these totalizing systems of thought?
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Another solution would be to abandon reason author.
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Some philosophers such as Carl Jaspers even argue that reason is a fairly useless concept, that it is driven by a despairing desire for metaphysical transcendence.
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Others, such as Kierkegaard, suggest that the world does in fact have some sort of reason, but that it is outside of human comprehension.
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Hence, we should nonetheless commit a leap of faith, accepting the fact that we will never fully understand the world, but nonetheless believe.
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Camus argues that to deny reason itself is intellectually destructive.
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In order to live fully, we need to tackle the incomprehensibility of life itself, including death, nothingness, morality, and metaphysics.
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apply reason to the world, but the project itself gives us the potential to truly live.
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Finally, there is the possible solution of self -obliteration, of taking one's life after confronting the painful futility of the absurd.
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This is, in a sense, the most extreme example of accepting the absurd.
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But Camus asks us if such a solution is truly reasonable.
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He writes, "The absurd is an experience that must be lived through a point of departure, the equivalent in existence of Descartes' Doubt.
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For Camus, to take one's life is to reject freedom itself, the key to living fully.
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Camus proposes his solution which he defines through his idea of the absurd hero.
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The existentialist Jean -Paul Sarch gives us a clear definition of such an individual:
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The absurd man wants to live without relinquishing any of his certainty, without a future, without hope, without illusions, and without resignation either.
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He stares at death with passionate attention, and this fascination liberates him.
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He experiences the divine irresponsibility of the condemned man.
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For Camus, we must live consistently with the absurd.
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This entails the adoption of three mindsets.
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Firstly, to live as an absurd hero is to live in constant revolution.
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One must constantly revolt against one's circumstances, such as the fact that death is unavoidable and defeat is ever -present.
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By doing so, we keep the absurd alive, rebelling with a total lucidity that we will never come out victorious.
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We then find a greater capacity to live in the present.
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Our task to rebel gives us clarity in what we are to do in our time alive.
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Secondly, we must reject the idea of eternal freedom.
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Camus shares Nietzsche's dislike of hope and salvation, the idea that one day we will be free.
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Instead, we should recognize that we are free at every moment, that heaven is on earth,
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Discounting these great hopes, such as the idea that we will understand the world or transcend death or be happy one day, is an important step in appreciating our lives as is.
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Thirdly, we must live with a sense of passion for life itself.
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Camus recommends living as much as possible rather than as good as possible, for the latter is restrictive of our freedom and relies on a relative conception of good you
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An absurd human knows about his mortality and yet doesn't accept it, knows about the limitation of his reasoning,
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yet still holds it dear feels the pleasure and pain of his experiences, and yet tries to take in as many as possible.
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From this, Camus values the artist as the closest to living authentically.
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The artist lives and creates in the moment, willing to abandon one piece to quickly move on to the next one.
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They create out of the absurd recognition that nothing is eternal or sacred, but should nonetheless exist.
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Albert Camus also summarizes his system of philosophy in the myth of Sisyphus, who is condemned by the gods to forever roll a boulder up a mountain,
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only for it to each time fall back down.
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Camus asks us to imagine Sisyphus happy for three reasons that illustrate his absurdism: For one, Sisyphus has no illusions about the futility of his existence.
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He has no conception of a better day or an afterlife.
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His existence is tied to the here and now.
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Nonetheless, Sisyphus revolts against his circumstances permanently by giving his all to a task that he will never finish.
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Despite the futility, he embraces the unreasonableness of it all with absolute lucidity, revolting against nihilism and despair.
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This awareness allows him to be the master of his own fate.
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Bye.
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From this, Sisyphus is truly free, even in his condition of eternal condemnation.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This video has 83 sentences and 1246 words to shadow. The speech runs for 7:33. The speaker talks at a natural 165 words per minute, close to everyday conversation. Only 79% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is demanding.
Key vocabulary in this video
15 words from the video worth learning, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| absurd adjective | /əbˈsɜːd/ | Contrary to reason or propriety; obviously and flatly opposed to manifest truth; inconsistent with the plain dictates of common sense; logically contradictory… |
| deny verb | /dəˈnaɪ/ | To disallow or reject. |
| nonetheless adverb | /ˌnʌnðəˈlɛs/ | Nevertheless. |
| argue verb | /ˈɑɹ.ɡju/ | To show grounds for concluding (that); to indicate, imply. |
| unreasonable adjective | /ʌnˈɹiːz.(ə)nə.bl̩/ | Without the ability to reason; unreasoning. |
| eternal adjective | /ɪˈtɝ.nl̩/ | Lasting forever; unending. |
| despair noun | /dɪˈspɛə(ɹ)/ | Loss of hope; utter hopelessness; complete despondency. |
| conception noun | /kənˈsɛpʃən/ | The act of conceiving. |
| revolt noun | /ɹɪˈvoʊlt/ | An act of revolting. |
| stable noun | /ˈsteɪ.bəl/ | A building, wing or dependency set apart and adapted for lodging and feeding (and training) ungulates, especially horses. |
| belief noun | /bɪˈliːf/ | Mental acceptance of a claim as true. |
| hence adverb | /ˈhɛns/ | In the future from now. |
| pretend verb | /pɹəˈtɛnd/ | To speak or behave so as to give a false or simulated appearance. |
| reward noun | /ɹɪˈwɔɹd/ | Something of value given in return for an act. |
| painful adjective | /ˈpeɪn.fl̩/ | Causing pain or distress, either physical or mental. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| come out verb | /ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/ | To be discovered; to be revealed. |
| fall back verb | To retreat. | |
| find out verb | To discover, as by asking or investigating. | |
| go through verb | To travel from one end of something to the other. | |
| live through verb | To survive a difficult period or event | |
| mess up verb | To make a mess of; to untidy, disorder, soil, or muss. | |
| sit up verb | To assume a sitting position from a position lying down. |
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 7 contractions and reduced forms, such as we're, doesn't, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- The “th” sounds: nonetheless /ˌnʌnðəˈlɛs/, myth /mɪθ/, thereby /ðɛɹˈbaɪ/, thirdly /ˈθɚdli/, toothbrush /ˈtuːθ.bɹʌʃ/
- The “sh” and “zh” sounds: conception /kənˈsɛpʃən/, punish /ˈpʌnɪʃ/, illusion /ɪˈl(j)uːʒ(ə)n/, recognition /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/, passion /ˈpæʃən/
- Long words — get the stress right: unreasonable /ʌnˈɹiːz.(ə)nə.bl̩/, philosopher /fəˈlɑsəfɚ/, recognition /ˌɹɛkəɡˈnɪʃ(ə)n/, consistently /kənˈsɪstəntli/, permanently /ˈpɜː.mə.nənt.li/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Start at 0.75× speed, shadow it sentence by sentence, then go back to normal speed once it feels easy.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like absurd, deny, nonetheless.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.