The Absurdity of it All

Existence is essentially absurd. This statement may seem radical to certain people, especially those who go through life looking for a reason why they should be doing so.  In the end “…it makes little difference whether one dies at the age of thirty or threescore and ten- since, in either case, other men and women will continue living, the world will go on as before.” (pg. 71)

This however, doesn’t mean that we must go through life without making any personal attachments. Like Mersault, one is allowed to think of life as a bizarre thing which has no purpose other than our own amusement, and still feel love. This is what Mersault did. He felt love. Even if the character never accepts it, the love he felt for his mother actually began the sequence of events that led to his death.

Many people don’t believe that there was any love in Camu’s character, but the novel itself disproves this hypothesis when the character explains his train of thoughts as he killed the Arab. “It was just the same sort of heat as at my mother’s funeral, and I had the same disagreeable sensations…”  (pg. 38) he says. This past statement proves, not only that Mersault did love his mother and felt badly in her funeral (even if he didn’t weep), but also that an existentialist lifestyle doesn’t necessarily imply a stoic life.

I value my life because it is my one chance to create something amazing, it is the one opportunity I have to try and make it into the scant pages of world history that seem to matter to the human race. The truth is that I probably won’t achieve it. How many Albert Einstein’s exist?

Throughout history we can see various examples of people who, like this acclaimed physicist, made something no one had ever seen before, but, in comparison to the vast amount of people who have gone through their lives without doing anything remarkable, these people are almost non-existent. I am all for finding a meaning within yourself, even if life as a whole never offers one, because with a meaning within us, we can at least enjoy those few moments we have.

Life is a completely random set of events which eventually leads to death. There is nothing more to it, and thus it has no meaning. There is really no point in everyday life, but, as long as you enjoy the meaningless wonders it offers, the absurdity of it all need not make it any less worth living.