Revisiting Albert Camus and Absurdism
Albert Camus's "The Myth of Sisyphus" was cathartic in my early 20s. It laid out the characteristics of "the absurd", a term describing the collision of a conscious being's desire to impose meaning on the world and the inherent lack thereof. In both fiction and philosophy, Camus observed two common and internally consistent responses: delusion or suicide. "There is but one truly serious philosophical problem", said Camus, "and that is suicide".
It is with great relief that I've never been suicidal myself, but I did experience the absurd. I questioned why I ought to do anything at all, and what purpose it might serve. I saw those around me going on happily with their lives while I felt I'd glimpsed some horrible demon from between the stars. I gestured ineffectually, hoping others might take notice. I saw potential lives unravelling before me, all of which seemed pointless. To marry or not. To have children or not. To go into this career or that. To perceive life as a grey thicket of branching possibilities of equal weightlessness is no life at all.
This is why Camus's work appealed. It offered a way to cope with the absurd condition: that of "revolt". The tragic Greek hero after which the essay was named served as his mascot. He would imagine Sisyphus, doomed to roll a boulder up a hill for all eternity, locked in moments of contemplation between spare moments as the boulder rolled down the hill. Perhaps he would savour his meagre existence, taking pleasure in the sight of distance mountains or dark horizons in the underworld. "One must imagine Sisyphus happy" is perhaps the most famous line of the work, but Sisyphus is merely a foil to other tragic heroes that chose other paths. Kirilov from Dostoevsky's "The Possessed" was another such hero, but whose encounter with the absurd ended at the barrel of a gun in a desperate bid to wrest agency from his creator. Others used God as the ultimate redeemer. To Chestov or Kierkegaard, the hideous face of God offered refuge from apathy. In the presence of God, there can be meaning: a shepherd to fill the gaps reason cannot fill.
Unlike a retreat into God or self-destruction, revolt offered a different path. To revolt, in my view, is to accept the absurd: to contemplate and meditate on it, and persist in spite of that coldness. Like Sisyphus, to revolt is to push the boulder knowing that the universe does not care whether the boulder's at the top of the hill or the bottom. It's to push the boulder knowing it's of no consequence. I drew a lot of confidence and resolve from this, and the idea wove itself into the fabric of my identity.
Having recently reread The Myth of Sisyphus, I'm pleased to say that I'm no longer as moved. I still face the absurd condition, but I've learned to enjoy life in spite of it, and to not wallow in it. The meaning we create for ourselves may die with us, but we can allow it to consume us in our brief lives (without necessarily forgetting the true nature of things). Humanistic intent and action allows us to give others the choice to spend their lives how they see fit, whether they confront the absurd themselves or not. To help humanity is to expand the power of our collective consciousness, such that we may conceptualise better ways of living and dealing with the absurd, among other things. We are free to administer our own moral prescriptions to alight the world.
Absurdity is freedom. It's the freedom to make our own mistakes, and bumble around like toddlers in the cosmic sandpit. It's painful, horrible, and beautiful in its simplicity. So too is the joy that comes from its acceptance.