Camus, in his first lines of his essay says -

There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.

This single sentence raised questions in my mind about my own understanding of life for I have known for a long time that there is no meaning in this world. But just in the next line, Camus goes one step further to ask a much deeper question which has crossed my mind before but I never cared enough to looks for its answer. If life has no inherent meaning, all the earthly questions are stripped down to one single thought -

Is life worth living?

The Absurd

Every individual at some point in their life must agree or at least feel that life is nothing but suffering. People who are more fortunate - those who have not seen poverty, abuse and sacrifice might realize this later than people whose life has been cruel from a younger age. But this isn’t true always. Because people instinctively form habit of living before questioning their existence itself. They go on to live their daily lives before raising this very question of what their lives are for and if it has any meaning.

As soon as we becomes aware of this meaningless chaotic world and our desire to find meaning in it, we are confronted with the silence of the universe. This confrontation is what Camus calls - the absurd. We can dig deep into universe’s origin or find if there is water on Mars but none of those answers help in negating the fact that our own lives are meaningless and there is no cosmic answer. This raises the initial point of discussion again - Is life worth living? If everything is absurd, why not quit the game?

While all this had crossed my mind before, what I never did was challenge this question. But reading what Camus articulates in The Myth of Sisyphus gave me a lot of satisfaction and provided me comfort with my struggle to understand absurdism. Camus rejects suicide. He says it is confessing that life is too much for you or that you do not understand it. He says to defeat the absurd you must be a rebel. You must face it, acknowledge it and live with it in the eternal state of rebellion. That is the very definition of living.

When we dive deep into this reasoning of absurdity, we are bound to hit its limitations. By questioning life we arrive at death or suicide which is the ultimate limit of absurdity. But there exist another “walls” which an absurd mind must encounter. It is time. It is irrationality. It is freedom. When our desire for meaning collides with these walls, we are in a state of absurd condition and we see reality as it is rather than what we want it to be.

Once we hit these walls, we are again confronted with two choices - either to accept the absurd and rebel against it forever or refuse to accept the consequences of absurdity. Camus calls this Philosophical Suicide. Trying to escape the absurd by making a “leap” into religion, faith and higher metaphysical or spiritual forces. We try to kill our own reasoning to avoid the absurd. But we cannot separate consciousness from the absurd and fail to realize that the absurd doesn’t belong to us or this world and it only arises when the two meet. Camus thus rejects the idea of philosophical suicide and insists that we must not negate the reasoning and escape to illusions. Believing in a higher power or destiny can offer a place to hide but it also takes our agency or freedom, turning our actions into something that is already chosen for us.

To an absurd mind, reason has no real use and yet there is nothing beyond it. Above all, our thoughts are shaped by a kind of nostalgia. For such an absurd mind, the world is neither rational or irrational. It is just unreasonable. But if the world has no meaning, what does it say about our freedom? Most of us are told to follow God and the morality that comes with religion and that we are part of a bigger plan. This raises a paradoxical question that if we are not free in this life then God is responsible for all the evil in the world. Or if we are free and responsible then the God that we are supposed to follow is not all-powerful and his existence itself becomes a question. For an absurd mind, there is no higher meaning which makes his freedom radically free. If absurdity takes away the illusion of eternal freedom, it also provides a more empowering freedom of action. We start living for our finite life and our choices. This absurd freedom lets us live intensely in the present. We are not worried about the future in the sense that there is no afterlife or destiny. Beyond the present, there only lies nothingness and collapse. One can however argue - if there is no meaning, we can act in any way, even immorally. But Camus disagrees to this. He says:

The absurd does not liberate; it binds. It does not authorize all actions. “Everything is permitted” does not mean that nothing is forbidden.

An absurd mind is free because it understand its limit. It doesn’t believe in God, redemption or higher purpose. Yet, it understands that morality begins when justificaiton ends. You don’t do good because it saves you or earn you eternal afterlife reward. You do it because suffering exist and you refuse to add to it. This is how it is different that the illusion of freedom based on faith. In a world full of chaos, decency doesn’t need a witness and goodness isn’t grand. This is a lesson I have already learnt from another one of my idol, Christopher Hitchens. We can’t fix this anarchy. We can’t end this suffering. But we can refuse to participate in it. Thus, an absurd life is created on three pillars -

Revolt
— Refusal to give in to meaninglessness.
Freedom
— Knowing the limits that life is short and we will die. The universe is indifferent to this fact. So stop chasing imaginary future and live in the present.
Passion
— Understand that life belongs entirely to us. Do not wait for salvation and live for today.

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Absurd Heroes

Camus didn’t believe love was meant to complete us. There is no perfect love. There are just imperfect people trying again and again to love each other. But often it is born out of illusion and fantasy. This is where Camus introduces certain absurd “heroes” as a symbol of a specific way of living the abusrd life. We are not supposed to look at these characters from the point of morality but only as an example of how life without appeal and illusion makes sense. Following up on his ideas of love, Camus introduces Don Juan - a fictional figure known for seducing a lot of women. From a distance he would look to be sinful and evil. But Camus looks at him differently. Don Juan lives intensely in the present, never holding onto illusions of a perfect partner. He doesn’t search for his soulmate or eternal love. He does not cling. But does that make him wrong? For he doesn’t promise eternal love. He loves because he truly feels it in the moment and that moment is enough for him. He knows that his relationships cannot complete him for he does not seek completion. He only seeks presence. We in our own lives want to chase “the one” because it’s easier than facing our own chaos. But if life itself is incomplete why would love be any different? Don Juan realizes this. We should crave for the idea of love without illusions because we are not going to find a perfect partner. We should not expect anything from one another but just receive what the other has to offer us. Expectations will always setup our cause for disappointment. Love is not supposed to heal us. It is only supposed to stand by us, while we face the absurd together.

The other hero that Camus introduces is the Actor which shows another kind of truth that the world is made up of appearances. Just like in a drama, the world that it creates is finite, its identities finite and nothing lasts beyond the performance of the actors. This serves as a perfect example of the absurd world. The actor can be considered as an absurd hero because they live multiple lives and know that whatever they do on stage will not survive yet they continue to do so. They live in the moment and create meaning through their actions. Similarly, drama is nothing but a short span of stories spun together just like our lives. It is only in the intensity of the drama that makes it lively. We all are performing in this drama, playing roles and seeking recognition. What we fail to see is that it all disappears when the performance ends. But this is where the actor revolts against the absurd. He creates meaning where none is given. There is no afterline in the actor’s art. Only his present matters.

Then there is the Conqueror. Someone who is revolutionary, who confronts danger and uncertanity. Someone who embraces the freedom of action in front of meaninglessness. Risk is not a burden for him but a proof of his freedom. The conqueror doesn’t seek eternal truth. He creates meaning by acting. For a conqueror, the action is the reward itself. He is an absurd hero because he knows that his victories are temporary and will be met by cosmic silence but he still acts with passion and consciousness. He doesn’t leap from the absurd. His revolts are nothing but a way to pay his honours in a play which he knows he has lost in advance. In all these absurd heroes we can see the three pillars of absurdity that Camus talks about.

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Absurd Fiction

While the concept of absurdity is kind of abstract, it can still be explained if thought philosophically. But it often lacks feeling. This is where fiction can be used to feel the absurd. In fiction we can see characters living the absurd. We can see Don Juan, the actor or the conqueror in concrete situations and their actions against contradictions. Camus himself uses fiction in many of his novels to prove this point. He as a writer becomes the absurd man for he can create worlds without meaning. These charactes can revolt, embrace or even collapse under meaninglessness. Fiction can help us understand how does an absurd person actually live.

Creating is living doubly.

While reading the part where Camus explains philosophy and fiction, I couldn’t help but wonder about certain characters that I have read or seen in movies that reminds me of the absurd. They have shaped my childhood and even still continue to shape me in some way or another. I want to apply the same three pillars of absurdity to each of these characters to mark them as absurd. I might be wrong in my thoughts but I still want to write it down.

Dr. Manhattan
Camus said that the absurd begins when the longing for meaning meets the silence of the universe. When Jon aka Dr. Manhattan gains his power he starts perceiving the universe as indifferent. He sees humanity’s struggles and the ideas of morality and justice fades for him. He says:

We’re all puppets, Laurie. I’m just a puppet who can see the strings.

He doesn’t commit philosophical suicide but rather stares into the abyss and accepts the absurdity. He keeps living and acting. He participates in humans affairs. His choices of leaving earth and creating life on other planet shows his freedom. He chooses to act even though he knows that life has no meaning. When Ozymandias kills millions to prevent nuclear war, he asks Dr. Manhattan:

Ozymandias: I did the right thing, didn’t I?
Dr. Manhattan: Nothing ends, Adrian. Nothing ever ends.

He is telling Ozymandias that his act is temporary and any attempt to impose “final meaning” is an illusion. The absurd does not end.
Rick Sanchez
No one can better explain absurdity than Rick. He is aware of meaninglessness and repetedly tells Morty the same. He accepts absurdity and doesn’t leap to other ideas of faith or metaphysics. He also does not commit philosophical suicide. He keeps living and with freedom from illusions. In fact, he showcases all the qualities of the absurd heroes that Camus wrote in his essay. Like Don Juan, Rick also believes that love is not real.

“It hits hard, Morty, then it slowly fades, leaving you stranded.”

Like the actor, he takes on many appearances and roles in his life. He knows that those appearances will end but he still chooses to act upon it. He acts freely in a world which has no meaning. He embrases absurd freedom. And lastly, he risks it all. He is a rebel and takes on challenges and adventures head on all while mocking higher meaning. He lives intensely in the present.

“To live is to risk it all. Otherwise, you’re just an inert chunk of randomly assembled molecules drifting wherever the universe blows you.”
Dr. Rieux
Camus’s own example of the absurd man. In The Plague, Camus creates Dr. Rieux to explain absurdity. Rieux is a physician at a time when the plague epidemic is spread out. He is an atheist and doesn’t blame God for the suffering that is rampaging the world. He knows that suffering cannot be justified. Instead of committing philosophical suicide, he understands that revolt is the only answer to the absurd. Even in a world without meaning, he shows up everyday to help the needy. Not because there is a moral scorecard but because that’s the right thing to do. Camus calls this the modest heroism of the absurd. In a world full of longing and suffering, the only meaning left is what we create through our actions of kindness and presence. And maybe that’s enough. Rieux knows he can’t fix the world. But he can refuse to make it worse.

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The Myth of Sisyphus

Camus ends his essay with one of the most unique idea of absurdism by narrating the mythical story of Sisyphus.

Sisyphus was a cunning king who repeatedly deceived gods and committed many crimes. He even tricked Death twice and fooled Zeus. As a punishment of his acts, Sisyphus was condemned by the Gods to an eternal fate. He must push a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down each time he nears the hill’s top. This punishment was meant to be an endless torture for him. But Camus sees something different in Sisyphus’s story. He sees an absurd hero.

Sisyphus is well aware of his situation that his task has no purpose. He knows that he cannot change his fate. But even with the endless meaningless task, he does not lie to himself. He does not hope or live with illusions. This act of rebellion against the meaningless makes him the absurd hero. What one can understand from this myth is that Sisyphus is screwed. A picture of a man comes into mind who is tirelessly pushing a boulder up the hill. We picture him struggling just like the Gods wanted. As soon as Sisyphus is near the top of the hill to achieve his ultimate task, the stone rolls down by its own weight and rests at the bottom of the hill again from where Sisyphus has to push it back again towards the summit. This is when Camus flips the story. He says:

It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me.

And this is because at the very moment when he is going down to repeat the task again - Sisyphus is conscious. Why? Because for this punishment to be torturous, Sisyphus must know that the rock will fall again and he must push it back again. This moment of awareness is the core of the absurd. This is the parallel that can be drawn for our own lives.

Sisyphus knows that his fate belongs to him. He did not choose the rock but he can choose the attitude towards it. He accepts the reality and instead of hoping for a different one, he continues to perform his tasks. He doesn’t hope for a better tomorrow or if one day his life will have meaning. He embraces absurd freedom which makes him free and he chooses to go down and roll that boulder as an act of revolting against the absurd. He doesn’t worry about the things he cannot control. His past is irrelevant. His future is irrelevant. The only thing that exists at the moment is the rock. He does not try to justify his situation but rather starts living it and making the struggle his own.

Our own lives are not much different and sometimes we might feel getting caught in some endless cycle. But just like Sisyphus, we can find purpose by embracing the struggle itself. The point is not the absurd itself but how we respond to it. It is not true that happiness cannot be created in an absurd world.

While reading more about Sisyphus, I also read some myths that the Gods never bounded the task to be eternal to him. They just gave him a meaningless punishment hoping that he would crush under its weight. But Sisyphus defeated the Gods by refusing to be crushed internally. He deprived the Gods of their satisfaction. As Sisyphus reaches the bottom of the hill to his rock over and over again, he rebels against his fate. The struggle to the top itself is enough to fill his heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.

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