COVID-19 pandemic has left many of us to struggle with our daily lives. Lockdown, quarantine, and outdoor activities restrictions force us to stay at home for the longest time ever, or at least that is the case in my country. I never go outside of my house anymore, never see my friends, never do outdoor activities, I just stay inside my house. Months after months, I’ve spent my life in a boring cycle, filled with mundane routines at the same place. To say that I am starting to lose it is an understatement.
My days are often filled with quiet desperation, trying so hard to be sane despite everything that’s happening. I find it hard to find meaning in the time of community restrictions, where I spend my life locked inside my house. Everything around me has started to lose its meaning. Until my conscience took me to the place I’ve been there before. Not a literal place though, but more like an enlightenment thing. It is called Absurdism. It is a belief that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe. The Absurd refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek inherent value and meaning in life, and the human inability to find these with any certainty. Therefore, Absurdity is a conflict between humans’ desire to seek reasons or meanings behind their existence, and the impossibility to find those answers.
The man who first proposed this thought was Albert Camus, an Algerian-born French philosopher. He believes that humans are prone to encounter the strike of an absurd feeling at some point in their lives. Now, what is an absurd feeling? It is a feeling when you feel like your whole purpose of existence has started to feel pointless, and you ask, what’s all of this for? Why am I alive? Is there any reason I should stay alive? But then, you get no answers. It is like the universe does not even spare you a single glance, it is silent, and will never answer those big existential questions. That is what’s called an absurd feeling, humans desire to find meaning in their existence, but they find none.
If no one can answer this existential question then, what should we do? Are we going to take our lives because it leaks of meaning, or are we going to keep living despite it all? This question brings us to the very opening sentence of Camus’ essay, The Myth of Sisyphus. It says:
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy. All the rest — whether or not the world has three dimensions, whether the mind has nine or twelve categories — comes afterwards”. — Albert Camus
It is clear from his essay that Camus does not suggest suicide as an answer to our feeling of absurdity. He even considers suicide as a truly serious philosophical problem. Yet, some people are appeal to this choice.
According to Camus, there are two types of suicide, physical and philosophical suicide. Physical suicide is the act of taking one’s own life to the point of death. Philosophical suicide, on the other hand, is an act of killing one’s own life by the leap of faith, meaning, by submitting oneself into dogmas or religions that can give them meanings and reasons to be alive. While physical suicide can be said as a literal form of escapism from the absurdity of existence, philosophical suicide means an escape from the feeling of absurdity experienced by humans, by believing in metaphysical frameworks, such as religions. Once again, Camus refuses both suicides.
After categorizing two kinds of suicides, Camus offers unprecedented answers as to how we can live, accept, and even celebrate the feeling of absurdity. Before we arrive at the solutions though, we must first accept and recognize that it is impossible for us to find any inherent meanings in life. There may be an inherent meaning to life, but we still can’t find it till the present, hence it is best to only believe what we’ve already known because life is too short to dwell on something that we don’t really know the exact existence of it.
After accepting the non-existent meaning in life, Camus gives us three direct answers to live through the absurdity: revolt, freedom, and passion. Revolt can be understood as an act of rebel towards absurdity by keep on going and living despite life’s futile nature. We rebel against the meaninglessness of life. This best describes by Camus’ quotes:
“The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion”. — Albert Camus
It is further explained by Camus in his essay with Sisyphus’ metaphor. Sisyphus was a Greek mythological figure who was condemned by the Gods to roll the boulder up the mountain only to find it roll back down again after it reached the top. He lives this kind of punishment for eternity. His whole life from then, only filled with that one act of punishment. For some, this is seen as a nightmare, but Camus asks us to imagine Sisyphus happy. He said that Sisyphus is an example of an absurd hero, where he knows that his punishment is up for an eternity and there is no way for him to escape from it, yet he is happy because it is the only form of life he can live anyway. He might as well live through it with an open heart and celebrate it, as Camus says in his essay:
“Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” — Albert Camus
Camus’ next solutions to the absurdity are passion and freedom. Passion is the act of living in the present moment, completely immersed in each second life gives. But even with the full awareness of the present moment, Camus reminds us to not get carried away with life. It is a paradoxical thought indeed, but what Camus means is we must fully embrace the present moment because it is only what we have, while also recognize that all moment of our lives is meaningless. The absurd person, then, is one that immerses him or herself in the present moment while knowing that any attempt he or she puts towards life is futile, eventually. He or she knows that his or her act of life does not really matter in the grand scheme of things, but proceeds to live immensely nonetheless because it is a form of revolt and passion. And that is a way to teach him on overcoming him or herself and to face the absurdity, and the vehemence of life head-on.
If passion is an act of living fully immersed in the present moment, freedom is embodied through the realization that humans are free beings. The absurd person lives his life with the utmost freedom, not constraint by any rules of society or religion. He or she lives according to his or her own moral standard. The absurd man is able to recognize how short life is, how anything that he or she does is utterly meaningless, hence he or she does not want to spend it by obliging into a set of rules made by anyone but him or herself. He or she values freedom above all else.
Conclusions:
We may still often encounter the feeling of absurdity at any point in our lives, but with the knowledge Camus gives us through the concept of Absurdism, we can find relief in knowing that there is a way to live with it through revolt, passion, and freedom.
