The Absurdity of Life and Common Literary Techniques Used to Express it
“There exists an obvious fact that seems utterly moral: namely, that a man is always a prey to his truths.” — The Myth of Sisyphus
Existentialism (along with absurdism and nihilism) became a mainstream ideology amongst philosophers after the outbreak of world war I. You’ve heard this story many times, so I’ll keep it short: The absurdity of life comes from the idea that humans have a desperate yearning for finding purpose and meaning in life but fail to do so in a universe that is inherently chaotic (at least for such simple beings as we humans appear to be).
To make it clearer,
Neither the human’s desire to find meaning nor the meaningless of the universe are thought to be absurd but the simultaneous existence of the two contradictory notions.
Absurdism, existentialism, nihilism — all of them were built around this core idea. There are many overlapping hypotheses and even divergencies inside these schools, so you’re likely to come across terms like existential nihilism or monotheistic and atheistic existentialism. Some accept the existence of free will while others don’t. Some believe that there exists a higher being outside of our absurd lives while others…
