Embracing Life's Absurdity: The Philosophy of Albert Camus

Some Wisdom On How To Navigate A Universe That Lacks Order And Rationality

Life can sometimes feel like we’re running on autopilot.

We wake up, go to work or school, come home, eat, and then repeat the cycle tomorrow. I’m sure there’s a couple variations to our day here and there, but on average, it typically boils down to a similar sort of cycle.

However, we occasionally have these moments where we recognize life’s absurdity. Those moments of half-dread, half-amazement, when you look up from the monotony of your life and suddenly remember the irrationality and incomprehensibility of the universe. You might remember the fact that you’re mortal, or you might question why you’re on earth in the first place. The monotony of our lives and the abundance of short-term distractions within it may provide us with a nice ‘autopilot’ experience the vast majority of the time, but once in a while, we get hit with the question of ‘why’.

Why doesn’t anything make sense? What is it all for? Why do we continue to search for meaning and knowledge in a seemingly incomprehensible universe? According to a philosopher known as Albert Camus, this thing that I’ve just described is known as the ‘absurdity’ of life, and lucky for us, he’s already thought through how we can deal with it in a positive and empowering way.

Albert Camus

Albert Camus was a French philosopher, author, and political activist. He’s the second-youngest person to have ever been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, having received it at the age of 44. He was active in the French Resistance during the Nazi occupation of France in World War II, and was a talented writer. He was known for being a moralist and for being strongly critical of Marxism-Leninism. His philosophical work is most known for its connection to absurdism, a philosophical theory which we’ll be exploring within today’s post.

The Absurd

Camus is most famously known for his commentary on absurdism, which is a philosophical theory that views the universe as being irrational and meaningless. When approaching the topic of absurdism, some philosophers have viewed it as something which is inherently negative, whereas others (such as Camus), have put a positive spin on it.

Camus viewed life and human existence as being absurd. Life’s ‘absurdity’ is basically the product of what happens when the irrationality and unreasonableness of the universe clashes with the human need for meaning and order. On one hand, you have the universe, which is pretty much incomprehensible in its totality, lacks any sort of order, and (arguably) lacks any ingrained, explicit meaning. On the other hand, you have us - humans who are constantly searching for meaning, order, comprehension, and rationality. According to Camus, this creates a sort of tension between us and the universe, which is known as the ‘absurdity’ of life.

“The feeling of the absurd can arise in many ways from the perception of the inhumanity and indifference of nature, from the realization of man’s temporality or of death which reveals the uselessness of human life or from the shock occasioned by perceiving the ultimate pointlessness of daily life and its routine” - Albert Camus, The Stranger

According to Camus, we’ve all experienced life’s absurdity. Death is an example of this; we can work as hard as we want, and accomplish amazing and incredible things, yet we’re all going to die one day. We put so much effort into life, and then in an instant, it’s gone. Now, being humans, we want an answer to this. We want death to make sense, to have some sort of meaning or explanation, but the universe doesn’t give us one. This is precisely what the absurd is - the clash between our need for meaning and the universe’s lack of one. It drives us crazy, and has since the start of our species. 

But, there’s good news. Camus goes on to demonstrate that life’s absurdity isn’t necessarily something we should be sad about. He believed that we shouldn’t become nihilists (the belief that life itself is inherently meaningless), and highlighted the fact that just because the universe doesn’t give us meaning (or is arguably devoid of meaning itself), doesn’t mean our lives have to be meaningless. He goes on to show us that we can exist within this absurd life whilst still having meaning, being happy, and living a fulfilled life. He communicates these ideas within his text, The Myth of Sisyphus.

The Myth of Sisyphus

The Myth of Sisyphus was an essay written by Albert Camus in 1942. Within it, he highlights the ‘absurdity’ of life and advocates for us to ‘revolt’ against it rather than succumb to hopelessness and nihilism. 

To illustrate his thoughts, Camus compared our absurd lives to the Greek mythological story of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was a character who defied the gods by chaining up Death in order to protect humans from mortality. He was ultimately unsuccessful in keeping Death captured, and was put before the gods for a sort of trial. The gods decided to give him a punishment which would last for eternity, and he was condemned to having to push a rock up a mountain, only for the rock to fall down again once he’d reach the top, effectively sentencing him to perform this mundane and painful act forever.

“You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing.” - Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

Camus highlights Sisyphus’ story because he believed that the myth contained many parallels to our own lives. By existing within a universe with no explicit meaning, all of our acts are therefore meaningless by default. Just like Sisyphus, we undertake a variety of meaningless actions and goals everyday - there’s no ‘why’ that’s given to us for our existence or to explain the metaphorical ‘rock’ that we push up a mountain everyday. Camus states that Sisyphus’ ‘pointless toil’ is similar to us spending our time in office cubicles, at factories, or elsewhere.

"The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.” - Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

However, Camus believed that there’s a lot to learn from a specific part of Sisyphus’ story; the part when Sisyphus watches the rock tumble back down again from the top of the mountain.

"It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end.” - Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn.” - Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

Despite the unending, mundane, and sometimes painful nature of his task, Sisyphus does not stop or resign. He continues pushing through his inherently meaningless task, and this is precisely what gives Sisyphus power over his fate. According to Camus, the act of continuing on, of pushing through, despite being faced with absurdity, is the key to exercising power over it. To accept your absurd fate with confidence, and to march on, gives us control, confidence, and strength.

“All Sisyphus’ silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols.” - Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

“At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.” - Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

The acknowledgement of the absurd is what gives us power over it. It gives us a sort of agency and control, rather than constantly trying to fight the irrationality of the universe. Recognizing that the universe is devoid of any nicely-packaged sense of meaning which can be delivered to us allows us to find happiness and meaning itself. By marching down to retrieve his rock, time and time again, Sisyphus is given the opportunity to find a sense of meaning, empowerment, and control over his inherently meaningless task.

“The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable… he knows himself to be the master of his days….

He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” - Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus

According to Camus, the absurdity of life is something we can’t escape. We’ll never have an explanation of our existence or a ‘how-to’ guide on meaning sent to our email inboxes anytime soon, but what we can do is march forward without these trivial requirements. The very act of marching forward, of pursuing things you’re drawn to and that make you happy, then becomes our sense of meaning - effectively allowing us to generate meaning within a meaningless world. 

As Camus would probably say, don’t sulk in your basement and cry about the fact that the universe doesn’t give us any explanations or a clear-cut sense of meaning. Instead, go outside and meet up with your friends, go and do things you like to do, just go and live life in general - for the very act of living is all that we’ve got.

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