Question

"The Myth of Sisyphus" Please respond to the following:

Explain what Camus means by stating that life is absurd. Explain your agreement or disagreement with his position. Provide reasons and examples to support your view. Explain the sort of world that might satisfy Camus’ conditions for meaning. Provide reasons and examples to support your view.

Answer 1

According to Camus, the absurd is what we experience to recognize that the meanings we give to our lives do not exist beyond our own consciousness. The absurd stems from the contradiction between our own tendency to assign meaning to life, and our knowledge that the universe, and our existence, as a whole is meaningless. Camus was particularly fascinated by the story of Greek mythology king, Sisyphus. For him, Sisyphus' predicament represented an endless struggle to perform a task that was essentially meaningless.

I personally adhere to Camus' notion of our existence, dark and discouraging as it may seem. A tiny glimpse of the sky on a clear night is sufficient to establish his view. The scale of the universe is colossal and even calling ourselves 'specks of dirt' would be an overstatement. From this objective point of view, to feel that our existence has any inherent meaning in the universe's scheme of events is fallacious, if not delusional.

To live in the light of this contradiction, Camus posits that one we wholly and genuinely accept the fact that life is meaningless and absurd, we’re in a position to live fully. By embracing the absurd, our lives symbolically become a constant revolt against the meaninglessness of the universe. Like Camus, I believe that this attitude towards the absurd can allow us to live freely. We can assign individual meanings to our lives, but at the same time, recognize that it only has personal significance and we do not need to worry about the constraints posed by others.