According to French-Algerian philosopher Albert Camus, our world has no ultimate meaning,
but if it had, it would be impossible to know it.
It’s all pretty pointless as if the universe is nothing more than a cosmic coincidence,
born without any specific goal or significance.
For some, such a meaningless existence could lead to despair and even worse.
So it seems that, for many, meaning is necessary to live; and without meaning, life is not
worth living.
Humans crave purpose; no wonder that they massively subscribe to belief systems that
provide it, even if what they provide isn’t rationally explicable.
Taking such a “leap of faith,” Albert Camus considered philosophical suicide, as
we break with reason and embrace a conviction just to answer the human desire for existential
purpose when there isn’t any.
This discrepancy between the human impulse to ask ultimate questions and the impossibility
of finding adequate answers, Camus called The Absurd.
In a previous video about Albert Camus, we explored his philosophy of Absurdism and ways
to deal with a meaningless existence.
This video focuses more on how to live in the face of life’s absurdity or, more specifically,
how to be an absurd man (or woman, for that matter).
Is a meaningless life worth living?
According to Albert Camus, it is.
He believed we never live life fully if we keep looking for its meaning.
His book The Myth of Sisyphus states:
People have played on words and pretended to believe that refusing to grant a meaning
to life necessarily leads to declaring that it is not worth living.
In truth, there is no necessary common measure between these two judgments.
End quote.
This human requirement for meaning opposing an impersonal, cold, silent universe that
doesn’t provide us any hint of inherent meaning or purpose, aka The Absurd, often
drives people into escapism.
Some find their meaning in a religion that offers them not only the purpose of life but
also the origins of the universe, divine rules of conduct, and the possibility of reward
in the afterlife.
Others refuse to take the leap of faith (or their rational minds simply don’t allow
them to) but experience the subsequent void of pointlessness so unbearably that they decide
to make away with themselves (thus, suicide).
The latter, Camus considered the only serious philosophical problem.
Camus distinguished two forms of suicide: on the one end, physical suicide, and on the
other, ‘philosophical suicide.’
By escaping from the absurd, we either end up dead or as ‘walking dead;’ the latter
are individuals who exchanged the painful, absurd truth for comforting substitutes.
They are the blue-pilled masses - the sheep - fooling themselves and each other, existing
under the veil of blissful ignorance.
According to Camus, we should not give in to the absurd.
Instead, we should accept the inherent meaninglessness of the universe and revolt against it.
He stated:
By the mere activity of consciousness I transform into a rule of life what was an invitation
to death—and I refuse suicide.
End quote.
Camus believed that a meaningless life is worth living if we remain aware of the absurd
contradiction between the human craving for ultimate meaning and the universe’s negligence
in providing one.
To flourish in the face of this absurdity, we have to become absurd ourselves.
To the absurd man, Camus ascribed three characteristics: revolt, freedom, and passion.
First, the absurd man refuses to accept the “invitation to death,” as he doesn’t
commit physical or philosophical suicide.
He entirely accepts the conflict between the human desire for meaning and the impossibility
of finding ultimate purpose and doesn’t need any false, comforting substitutes to
solve this conflict.
He acknowledges that he cannot solve the conflict and doesn’t wish to do so.
And so, he revolts against his own instinctive hunger for meaning, but also against the world,
throwing all kinds of solutions at his face, sometimes even forcing him to commit to a
belief system.
An example of the absurd man in revolt is the character Meursault from Camus’ book
The Stranger.
Meursault is a solitary individual who enjoys simple pleasures like swimming in the sea
and being in the company of a woman named Marie.
When his mother dies, he doesn’t show grief.
And when an Arab man on the beach threatens him with a knife, he shoots him and doesn’t
show sorrow afterward.
Meursault doesn’t act in ways he in which doesn’t feel inclined to act just to fit
in with the rest or because it’s moral to do so.
The people in his environment are disgusted by Meursault’s lack of emotions, a personality
trait weighed heavily when the judge sentences him to death.
While waiting for his execution, the prison’s chaplain tries to convert him to Christianity,
but Meursault refuses, as he embraces the world as it is: meaningless, random, indifferent.
In doing so, he revolts against the human thirst for an ultimate purpose.
Although Meursault’s life was ending, he died a free man, as in he didn’t sell out
to any artificial meanings or irrational belief systems.
Camus wrote about the absurd man:
He who, without negating it, does nothing for the eternal.
Not that nostalgia is foreign to him.
But he prefers his courage and his reasoning.
The first teaches him to live without appeal and to get along with what he has; the second
informs him of his limits.
Assured of his temporally limited freedom, of his revolt devoid of future, and of his
mortal consciousness, he lives out his adventure within the span of his lifetime.
End quote There are many interpretations of what Camus
meant by “living without appeal.”
But from reading the myth of Sisyphus and his novels, he seems to point to an existence
in which one doesn’t engage in the absurd search for ultimate meaning.
Living without appeal means embracing the here and now, acknowledging that there isn’t
anything to see for him beyond the mundane; no higher purpose or divine morals, no afterlife,
nothing.
It seems to be a life without the intention to appeal to anything more than the indifference,
limitations, and meaninglessness we find in the ordinary.
Such an existence may come across as nihilistic.
With Meursault’s character, Camus presents a nihilistic tragic hero who doesn’t care
about morality and just lives nihilistically, gratifying his senses.
He sees no inherent meaning in the universe and manages to live happily without it.
Aside from the characters in his novels, Camus provided several examples of people he considered
to have embraced the absurd in his book The Myth of Sisyphus.
These examples illustrate how one could live in the face of meaninglessness (as Camus called
it) without appeal.
Although they might look like them, Camus probably didn’t intend to present these
examples as ‘archetypes,’ as they’re not models that one should strive to live
by; they’re just examples of absurd individuals.
If one aims to live the ‘absurd life,’ it’s probably better to focus on why these
people are absurd instead of mirroring their actions.
The Seducer
As his first example of the absurd man, Camus presents a well-known womanizer named Don
Juan.
This fictional character goes from woman to woman, using the same tactics for each woman
he conquers, devoting his whole life to seduction.
Many people would consider the existence of an individual that revolves entirely around
the conquest of short-term lovers as shallow.
How empty is someone’s life who does the same thing repeatedly, and how significant
is the risk of ending up alone and miserable with such a lifestyle?
Others believe that beyond the veil of Don Juan’s actions hides a man’s desperate
search for true love.
But these claims assume that Don Juan needs (or looks for) something beyond what he’s
already doing.
His life’s repetition, devoid of a higher purpose, must be an effort to ultimately attain
that higher purpose or, perhaps, a means of escaping from it.
From the perspective that a fulfilled life requires meaning beyond the engagement in
something banal like repetitive seduction using the same tricks and tactics, a figure
like Don Juan is tragic.
But, Camus argues, to Don Juan, the pleasure of seducing women and making love to them
is enough.
He lives for the moment and the joy of it.
Moreover, the quantity of his partners doesn’t mean that he doesn’t love.
He does love and gives his love to many.
Does that make it less valuable than what people consider ‘true love?’
The Actor
The second example of the absurd individual comes in the form of a stage actor, who made
a career out of experiencing many lives intensely.
The stage actor embraces at least two realities of life: that our lives are fleeting and that
there’s no point in aiming for long-lasting fame.
As opposed to actors in films or writers whose works survive for millennia, the performances
of stage actors will not be recorded for generations to enjoy.
Their actions on stage only count in the present moment, and there will be no trace of them
except within themselves and the people who observe them.
And the stage actor doesn’t mind that his actions aren’t eternalized.
After all, looking at the vastness of the universe and the limitlessness of time, even
the works of the ancient philosophers won’t survive.
And thus, the ambition to leave a legacy is pretty pointless.
Therefore, stage acting embodies the absurd life, which takes place in the present, for
the moment, without appeal for anything beyond that.
When we look at plays, movies, and television series, we always see the critical moments
of the characters’ lives: the most passionate, emotional, and dramatic events.
And so, the actor lives the highlights of all these different lives passionately within
one lifespan, as opposed to the dull existence of one life, let alone a life spent chasing
eternal happiness in the future, which, often, consists of following life-denying rules to
purchase it.
The actor lives the lives of people who aren’t absurd like himself, but he lives them fleetingly.
Paradoxically, by living many different lives, the actor manages not to be tangled up in
life.
By keeping his distance, he doesn’t fall into the trap of taking these lives too seriously.
He realizes that we all play roles, and everything we do is futile.
The difference between the absurd man and the rest is that the former knows it.
Those who don’t know – the majority of people – have conditioned themselves to
pretend that their pretense is no pretense but serious business; it amounts to something.
But it doesn’t unless we follow some belief telling us it does, according to the Absurdist
philosophy.
The absurd individual (in the form of an actor) is aware of the absurd but embraces the characters’
lives.
He’s pretending, enjoying the process, the momentary appreciation of the audience, and
thus affirming life by living many lives.
Still, he sees the drama, the rules we cast upon ourselves, and the meaning we ascribe
to our existence as a big joke.
The Conqueror
The conqueror that Camus describes lives an absurd life because she’s fully aware of
the futility of her actions but engages in them nonetheless.
She doesn’t spend time contemplating and doesn’t concern herself with the afterlife
or higher ideals.
She lives for the world her senses perceive, namely, the here and now.
Absurd conquerors know that their actions are ultimately pointless.
They’ll never conquer fate, and any change they make in the world will eventually be
undone.
The empires of old, forged with the blood of many, have all ceased to exist.
Fighters for social justice might progress in their time, but their accomplishments will
perish in the long run.
Fate wins every time.
And the ultimate fate of all is destruction, the great silence after a brief, insignificant
moment of liveliness somewhere in a dark corner of the universe.
Hence, the conqueror acts as if.
Her goal isn’t victory (although it would be nice).
Her goal is to conquer herself, experiencing the triumph over her body and mind again and
again.
The conquerer wants to feel strong through victory after victory and thus seeks to live
life at a high level.
The friendships on the battlefield, the close relationships formed during conflict, she
holds dear, as they’re intense and passionate.
According to Camus, the absurd conqueror chooses the sword over the cross, as the former concerns
what’s certain, and the latter is just a matter of hope and belief.
I quote:
There always comes a time when one must choose between contemplation and action.
This is called becoming a man.
Such wrenches are dreadful.
But for a proud heart there can be no compromise.
There is God or time, that cross or this sword.
This world has a higher meaning that transcends its worries, or nothing is true but those
worries.
One must live with time and die with it, or else elude it for a greater life.
End quote.
The seducer, the actor, and the conqueror all play the absurd.
They live in the present, lucidly, without hope.
Being without hope isn’t the same as being hopeless, says Camus.
Hopelessness is a form of despair that results from being unable to embrace the absurd: being
without the thing one desperately craves.
However, being without hope can be a pleasurable experience, according to Camus, if we acknowledge
that it’s all pointless but live life intensely nonetheless.
Thank you for watching.