Life is absurd, that detail can be the start of a great many things.
Source: Albert Camus on why accepting absurdity is the start of a fruitful life – Big Think
If you haven’t noticed, life is absurd. We humans strive to find meaning in the world, and the world responds with cold indifference. This contrast, often made evident when senseless and meaningless tragedy occurs, is inherent to most people’s relationship to the world.
While the idea that life has no inherent meaning can be jarring even to the point of despair, many philosophers who studied the problem think it doesn’t have to be that way. Albert Camus event went further, arguing that “accepting the absurdity of everything around us is one step, a necessary experience: it should not become a dead end. It arouses a revolt that can become fruitful.”
But what does that mean? More importantly, how do we go about doing that?
Camus considered a variety of ways to deal with this absurdity throughout his writings. However, he noted that most of them didn’t deal with the problem as much as they try to get around it.
He begins by proclaiming that “there is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide.” However, trying to deal with the meaninglessness of the universe by quitting doesn’t solve the problem at all; it just prevents us from having to deal with it.
He then considers turning to other, transcendental sources for meaning. However, he rejects this as a kind of “philosophical suicide,” that also tries to sidestep the problem of dealing with an absurd universe by imposing a system on it, like that of Christianity or Communism, which will only end up running into the meaninglessness of the universe again and again while also keeping us from working things out for ourselves.
This leaves one option: to embrace the absurdity of the universe as a simple fact. The person who can do this without falling into despair becomes what Camus calls an “absurd hero.”
