Albert Camus' "The Myth of the Sisyphus"

I have so much to say about Camus that perhaps this should better be done in two installments. I am frankly floored by his argument in "The Myth of the Sisyphus." I hope here to quote extensively from the book in order to create a reference bench for later discussions of "The God Delusion" by Dawkins (whenever I get to that one). Camus offers the absurd as an alternative to a life full of delusionary fantasy. While he does not come out freely as an atheist, he does expound the belief that lowering one's expectations yields a healthier life. He states that "the absurd teaches that all experiences are unimportant, and on the other it urges toward the greatest quantity of experiences." This is simply a way of life. While whatever we experience is devoid of meaning, one must strive to experience as much as possible (thus creating a purpose to live). Freedom, in all of its forms, is an illusion. Humanity will always be enslaved to something (God, ideas, science, etc.). It is through these dependencies that humans become enslaved: "To the extent to which he imagined a purpose to his life, he adapted himself to the demands of a purpose to be achieved and became the slave of his freedom." That is to say, by holding fast to a purpose in life we become essentially obligated and dedicated to that one ideal. So this is a metaphysical revolt of sorts. He who embraces the absurd doesn't simply embrace an ideology--he must contemplate it. The essence of Camus' argument: "a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning." I know what most of you will be thinking out there. I don't propose to break the fifth column and address my person or my issues, but the fact is yet that I am NOT becoming an atheist. I am exploring ideas that for all my life I have been told are off-limits. I am trying to make sense of all that I experience, day in and day out. Especially, I am trying to sort out the hypocrisy of the so-called Christians I work with. Certainly, I am in some way embracing the absurd, but I am doing so in order to avoid the two-faced calamity that most of my colleagues live every day. At any rate, this is not about me or my lessening faith; this is about Camus' argument.

Later in the book, on another essay entitled "Return to Tipasa," Camus makes allusion to his divided self--the self that is not at home because of its dislocation (another idea I have lived with all my life): "A day comes when, thanks to rigidity, nothing causes wonder any more, everything is known, and life is spent in beginning over again. These are the days of exile, of desiccated life, of dead souls. To come alive again, one needs a special grace, self-forgetfulness, or a homeland." This is perhaps one of the most brilliant passages in the entire collection. Camus sees his dislocation as an opportunity to begin again in other shores (albeit without purpose to do so), to embrace an empty shell of a life with every day that passes. Still embracing the absurd, one can still begin to live again. I have to go back to my reading list and decide what I am going to read next.

The Myth of the Sisyphus...

Camus is asking the ultimate question of philosophy: should life have meaning in order to be lived? Can a life without meaning be lived successfully? The principle here is that of the absurd. Furthermore, can a person live after embracing the absurd? Some of the main ideas are quite dense, but for purposes of simplification Camus dictates the following premise: much of our life is built on the hope for tomorrow, yet tomorrow only brings us closer to death. Basically, if you try to explain the world you will ultimately embrace romantizations and metaphors. True knowledge is impossible, and science and reason cannot describe meaning to the world. As absurdity invades all we do, the world becomes a foreign and cruel place.

Here Camus embarks on an examination of Heidegger, Jaspers, Chestov, Kierkegaard, Husserl, among others. He shows how all of these philosophers examined the absurd but ultimately failed to recognize its truth and turned to abstractions and Platonic beatitudes. I particularly like Camus' treatment of Dostoyevsky's Kirilov from "The Possessed." Kirilov's idea that if "God does not exist, then I am God," is put through several examinations. Kirilov wants to kill himself simply because he can do it, exercising his own god-like power. Camus reverts to the fact that this is not the absurd as necessary. Suicide, he begins to conclude, (I haven't finished the book yet) is not necessary in a meaningless life.

Reading Right and Meaningfully...

I finished "The Year of Magical Thinking" in less than a day. It is not the fact that I read fast (although I suppose I did), but the real and tangible experience it was to absorb every word, to take in all of its messages and enjoy one of the most productive reads I have had all year. Joan Didion is a great writer. Her emotions translate on the page as if they were happening to us in real life. She confronts the loss of her husband with courage and determination and could be seen as heroic in her efforts to restore normalcy to her life. The book is not depressing, although it deals primarily with the consequences of death to those who remain living. This is one of my top recommendations for this year. Excellent book.

What strikes me odd was the way I came across "The Year of Magical Thinking." I bought a couple of books at Amazon last year while we were still living in the apartment. Over the course of the year, I have gone back to Amazon to check reviews or information related to several books I have purchased elsewhere. The algorithms that select "recommendations based on what you have purchased or on the basis of what other people who purchased the same book have also purchased" seems to me sort of horrific. Nevertheless, one day, up comes "The Year of Magical Thinking" and I took it up to read it because the subject matter attracted me. I didn't get the book at Amazon. I went to "Half-Priced Books" and after a couple of fruitless searches, I found it on the fiction section under "Dickens." I didn't read it right away, and I am glad that I waited. The fact that at first seating I read over 100 pages is a testimony (from a slow reader like myself) that the books is an engaging piece of genius.

The next selection on my reading list is "The Myth of the Sisyphus" by Albert Camus. Now, now... it's not that I am in a binge of depressing books--far from it. I am reading these in preparation to a larger topic in both my fiction and non-fiction reading: that of the meaningful life and how to live it. The center piece of Camus' book is the question of whether or not life has to has meaning in order to live it. Moreover, if life does not seem to have significance or meaning, is it worth living or would it be much better to commit suicide? These are difficult questions, of course, but from what I have read from Camus before I know he will deal the subject with intense passion and scrutiny. What else could we ask for?