When people who are into philosophy think of existentialism, they often think of two people: Jean-Paul Sartre, who we talked about last time, and Albert Camus (1913-1960). These two are often associated because they were once close friends who eventually had a great, philosophical falling out (it was a pretty big deal at the time). Interestingly enough, although many people inaccurately label him as an existentialism, Camus never called himself that (part of the reason was because he wanted to distance himself from Sartre’s existentialism ).

Camus is known for his philosophy of absurdity. He says that human existence is innately absurd, and we should embrace that in order to create value and meaning. He acknowledges that life really has no meaning; the universe is something that simply exists and it is indifferent to people’s individual lives. Let’s take the myth of Sisyphus. If you’re not familiar with the story, Sisyphus was condemned to a fate that said that if he rolled a boulder to the top of the hill that he is on. Unfortunately, before he can get to the top of the hill with the boulder, the boulder rolls down each time. So, he is condemned to an eternity of rolling a boulder up a hill. While we know that his rock will fall down each time and his work is essentially meaningless, this could also be a blessing. Let’s also remember that we are essentially Sisyphus. We are living a life without meaning, but we still study, work, get stressed out, etc. This is exactly what Camus means when he says we have to appreciate the absurdity of our existence.

Camus argued that there are simply 3 ways to deal with the absurdity of life: suicide, faith, and acceptance. Suicide and faith, though, are irrational escapes to absurdity. On one hand, suicide removes the physical form of absurdity that is human life (which in turn means the absurd cannot exist), while on the other hand faith simply defies rationality. That leaves us with one plausible way to deal with absurdity: acceptance. The sooner we accept that life has no absolute meaning, the sooner you can be free and really start to live your life. It also allows us to attach our own meaning to our lives, and realize that the meaning of our life is different than that of somebody else’s. For example, while many of us may think we need to get a certain, high paying job, or have “X” number of kids in order for our lives to have meaning, we have to remember that meaning is individual; no one is really watching us and we are free to choose how our lives will be at any point in time.

Honestly, I did not know much about Camus’ philosophy prior to writing this. If I have to pick a side, though, regarding the epic Camus vs. Sartre debate, I really enjoyed the foundations of absurdism; it seemed like a more comforting and less ignorant philosophy as opposed to some of Sartre’s views.