Contemporary Philosophy

Topic: Albert Camus on Absurdity and Suicide

Camus’ philosophy is basically clinging to his idea of the Absurd. According to him, humans are so passionate to
look for the meaning of life and things where in fact there is really no meaning to it. As human find life and things are
meaningless, their direct response is to fill in a meaning. With this, as man is always in constant quest for meaning and by this
he is actually confronted by the absurdity of this life.
Life is fleeting. A tossed by the wind. If one is eager to find meaning to it, one is setting his hopes to a fall. This is
simply because there is nothing when we talk about meaning. This life has no meaning at all. Camus’s notion of absurdity is
best captured in the myth of Sisyphus, who is straining to push his rock up the mountain, watching it roll down, then
descending after the rock to begin all over, in an endless cycle. 1 As Sisyphus engaged himself to this ‘activity’ his
consciousness was awaken by the mere fact that it is an unending cycle and somehow realizes its meaninglessness. The thing
about it is that even in Sisyphus realization of things, he enjoys doing it or so, chose to enjoy it. With this, to embrace
meaninglessness and to be conscious of the absurdity this life brings is what makes man an Absurd Hero. “We must imagine
Sisyphus happy,” 2 he tells us, for the absurd hero is able to carry out a life as meaningless as eternally rolling a boulder up a
hill and find enjoyment in it anyway.
So, what is the meaning of life then? According to Albert Camus, it is meaningless—but, we can make life worth
living he added. Like Sisyphus, it would be great if we learn and know in so far as knowing how to enjoy things. To make the
most out of life and to appreciate the detail of what’s in it. To follow ones’ desire while he is still young or is still able to do
what his heart love to do. For we all know that after all this, we all face the ending and that everything is again meaningless.
Meaninglessness is just a background fact, but it does not necessarily mean that life cannot be enjoyed.

On Suicide
Camus considered Suicide as an acknowledgement of the absurdity of life. It is an act of choosing non-existence
over existence of which it can be a little help considering one is already conscious that life has no meaning. We may already
hear the line, “a life without meaning is a life not worth living” – Camus, places this problem of worth as to how we live our
lives. This is to say then, that the decision of committing suicide relies solely to man in a way that his decision somehow
depends on his consciousness of the meaninglessness of life. But then again for Camus, although suicide as an easy way out
of life’s absurdity is just nothing but an other option. One must learn to embrace absurdity and enjoy this truth of
meaninglessness.

1
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/camus/#ParCamAbs
2
https://www.sccs.swarthmore.edu/users/00/pwillen1/lit/abshero.htm