Camus and the Worthiness of Life
"There is only one philosophical problem that really matters, suicide. To judge whether life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question of philosophy."
—Albert Camus
There are questions I've been trying to answer for a long time. But I think the most important one is the question of why I continue to live. While everyone is dealing with the biggest problems of the world in their own little world, I started to question why I kept going. Was it a universal obligation? Was I really continuing on my own will? Am I afraid of taking my own life?
I have traveled, we have traveled, they have traveled the paths that have been laid out so far. We all went to school, worked, married, one way or another we did what we were told. It was as if what we were supposed to do was already written in pencil on invisible paper.
I wonder if you don't think about it in your daily hustle and bustle: brushing your teeth, traveling, enduring the atrocities of meetings at work, fighting with your wife or husband, don't you ever ask yourself: "God, how long is this going to go on?" When will the cancer take me out of here?
Camus writes the lines in the introduction as an individual in the 20th century who has been subjected to wars, economic and political pressures. The individual, who has not yet seen the benefits of technological progress, finds himself even more isolated and depressed. The laws, social pressure, famine, epidemics, standards, wars, race, ambition, death and "other" people, in which the individual finds himself unwillingly and without choice, prevent him from being happy and constitute a great obstacle to enjoying his life.
The question of the necessity of suicide actually takes us a little further back, to Shakespeare. To be or not to be. That's the whole point. Do you really think that's the whole point? After being here, do you know why you are here? Are you saying yes, I exist and I will remain existing until the end and I will be happy with that? What would the world lose if you never existed? Or what would you lose? Do the pros of your life outweigh the cons? Why would you stay here for another 40 years? I mean, life may not have played nice games with you yet.
Let's go back to Camus for a moment. Oh, Camus. My grape cake. Even though sometimes my navel cracks until I understand what's behind what he writes, he is actually one of the people I can identify with the most. His portrait hung on my wall for years with the question "Should I commit suicide or make some coffee?" from his book The Stranger. Would you look at what he's comparing the value of your life to? Is it really a coffee? Is your life really worthless compared to drinking coffee? How can you express more succinctly what you think about the meaning of life?
Along with this question Camus asks, there are actually a few other important questions. Okay, let's say you did not commit suicide, why get out of bed? Why does this universe exist? Why is there something instead of nothing? Why is there a human being in the world? Why is there so much suffering? Why is there a disease called cancer? Why do we have two legs but no fins? Why are we human beings and not fish? Where did my father learn to bake a cake like this?
Actually, when you look at Camus' question from a higher level, I like to interpret it this way: 50 years from now it won't matter whether you're drinking coffee or committing suicide. Because you won't exist and nobody will remember you. How much does it really matter what you do for the rest of your life? Today you can postpone suicide until tomorrow and have some coffee. After all, you have been through hard times.
Human life is no more important to the universe than that of an oyster
— David Hume
Camus does not stop by asking this question, he adds: The best thing one does every day is to decide not to commit suicide. Congratulations, you didn't commit suicide today either. What about tomorrow? Let's think about it. You need to create a good scene of suicide for it to be remarkable. After all you will not want you suicide to be not remarkable, right?
So what to do? If life has no meaning, should one create meaning? Camus actually says that you cannot create meaning either. Brutal Camus, just give me a way! The only thing you can do is to accept meaninglessness and go on with your life. Life itself is, in Camus' words, absurd. Because people get lost in the rush to find meaning in this meaningless world. We look for an answer, but all we find is a deafening silence. The silence of the world in offering answers. If you ask me, there is no need to be so pessimistic. Life, my friend, is devoid of inherent meaning. It is a relentless encounter with the absurd, a clash between our innate desire for purpose and the stark reality of a universe that remains indifferent to our pursuits. Since we have been thrown into this world, as Sartre put it, and since we do not have the courage to take our own lives, we can try to create our own meaning. This meaning can be the thing that gives you the energy to live every day. You do not have to be born with it, but you have to feel alive with it.
Camus' question then becomes this: Do you need your life to have meaning in order to go on living? If you ask him, no, he does not think so. Since you don't have the courage to put a bullet in your head, go on living. So Camus is saying here that because there's no meaning, why should we not enjoy it? I know that's a bit of an evasive answer. It covers up the helplessness of human beings. If we say there is no God, then I don't have any shackles. Why should I die instead of living? This mindset reminds us a little bit of Optimistic Nihilism. That is, if there is absolutely no meaning, why not enjoy it instead of saying that everything is meaningless.
What does the upper video tell us?
Human experience: We start with a sense of comfort and familiarity in our surroundings. However, as we learn more about the universe and our place in it, we come to realize our insignificance amid its vastness. We became self-aware only to realize this story is not about us. Now, that hurt.
No meaning: The apparent lack of inherent meaning in the universe grants individuals the freedom to define their own purpose. Despite life's fleeting nature, this perspective encourages embracing the unique experiences it offers.
Optimistic: Instead of being a nihilist and pessimist person, take advantage of this situation, create your fluid meaning and bu useful for others.
Close your eyes. Count to 1. That's how long forever feels.
Kierkegaard, who had similar meaning problems, took a leap of faith and took refuge in God. Camus, on the other hand, does not do this and argues that it does not necessarily have to have a meaning without breaking his atheist line. Do I need God to create meaning for myself? What about freedom? What about my agency? Searching for meaning in this absurd world is the nirvana of meaninglessness. The absurd is Camus' answer. In his words, the absurd is born from the confrontation between the human yearning for meaning and happiness and the silence of the world. Poor human beings constantly searching for meaning in a world where meaning can never be found...
According to Camus, there are many reasons for this absurd situation in which human beings find themselves. The monotony and machinelike taste of life, the boredom caused by the insignificance of the human being in the universe, the fact that time is always slipping away, the obligations that are compulsory and take up most of our lives, the alienation from oneself, the world and others, the deepening isolation and the death that we approach every day.
“It happens that the stage-sets collapse. Rising, tram, four hours in the office or factory, meal, tram, four hours of work, meal, sleep and Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday, according to the same rhythm – this path is easily followed most of the time. But one day the ‘why’ arises and everything begins in that weariness tinged with amazement. ‘Begins’ – this is important. Weariness comes at the end of the acts of a mechanical life, but at the same time it inaugurates the impulse of consciousness. It awakens consciousness and provokes what follows. What follows is the gradual return into the chain or it is the definitive awakening. At the end of the awakening comes, in time, the consequence: suicide or recovery. In itself weariness has something sickening about it. Here, I must conclude that it is good. For everything begins with consciousness and nothing is worth anything except through it.”
— Albert Camus
In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus tells us about a Greek myth. Zeus sentences Sisyphus to spend his life carrying a boulder up a hill, and every time he approaches the summit, the boulder rolls back down. This cycle goes on forever. How pathetic is that? It must remind you a little of yourself, the one who pushes himself like a boulder to work every morning.
Camus then says without hesitation that we should think of Sisyphus as happy. He never mentions what happiness means to him when he says this. Maybe what Camus calls happiness is helplessness for you. He avoids giving a precise definition of happiness. Maybe that's why he is happy. Never knowing or asserting the true definition of happiness so that every man can define it in his own term. Clever move.
But happy how? What exactly is “happy” about trying to push the rock up, knowing that every time it falls, it will fall again? From the outside, it's a completely pointless and empty endeavor. I think this is exactly what Camus is trying to say. When you look at the big picture, Sisyphus may seem to be trapped in a completely meaningless cycle, true, but each time he finds excitement by focusing on his goal and getting a little closer to his summit. He does the best he can in the present moment by staying in the moment, not looking back and not being too preoccupied with the future. He realizes that the only thing he can rely on is the present moment.
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.”
—Albert Camus
Sisyphus is actually very similar to the hedonic treadmill, which is now very popular in psychology. Throughout our lives, we always carry the rock all the way to the end, thinking that once we graduate, get a job, get married, have a child, then we will be happy. But when we reach the end, that is, when we realize the goal, we are actually back to square one. Because we got used to it quickly. What we have discovered and possessed no longer gives us the happiness we are looking for. As Sisyphus, we are doomed to drop the rock by carrying it up and up.
The term hedonistic adaptation was first used by Brickman and Campell in the 1970s and then evolved into the hedonic cycle in the 90s. According to the hedonistic cycle, no matter what happens to you, each person has an average happiness setting and we always return to this setting. This explains why your happiness ends 3 days after you get a promotion, why you are no longer excited about marriage after 6 months, why that house you saved for years and bought doesn't give you any excitement. Researchers have shown that people who win the lottery are no happier after 1 year than people who don't win. The same seems to be true for negative events. After a stroke, people can return to their previous level of happiness within 6 months and 1 year.
"Everything we accomplish enslaves us, because it forces us to do better."
— Albert Camus
In her book, researcher Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of How of Happiness, claims that human happiness is 50% genetic, 10% environmental and 40% in the hands of the individual. So, unfortunately, a lot of your happiness is determined by heredity. Sonja claims that we all have a standard point of happiness and that no matter what happens to us, we are bound to return to that standard point.
This standard point is very influential in our lives. For example, a study shows that happier graduates earn more, and women who smile in their graduation yearbooks are more likely to have a happier marriage. Of course, these are not things told to make you say yes, I was questioning why I was unhappy too, oh, it wasn't my fault. There is still a lot you can do, but it must be a bit comforting to accept that not all the responsibility lies with you. We will talk more about these in the section on research on happiness, but the author suggests the following items for you:
Feel gratitude and express it
Aim to get up every time you fall, always learning
Get into the habit of not thinking too much and stop comparing yourself to people
Practice kindness, say thank you
Improve your relationships
Live in the moment
Learn to forgive and forget
Get more involved in activities that really draw you in and make you lose track of time
Enjoy the little joys of life and do it with awareness, don't let it slip away
Never be aimless and never lose sight of your goal
Whether you belong to a religion, a faith or anything else you want, nourish yourself spiritually
Exercise, eat well and take care of your body
In fact, as you can see, much of what research supports is also said by Camus. Stay in the moment, learn to get up every time you fall, do activities that make you forget time. The only way you can go on in this life is to know that life doesn't care about you and to go on living in spite of that.
I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
- Mark Twain.
Focus on the task at hand and finish today's tasks one by one, focusing on the small picture. Always keep your eyes open for opportunities. Work can be very boring, but instead of fighting it, plan to get it done as soon as possible. Try to gamify your work. When you block the distractions around you with all your might, you will actually find your flow in the strong focused state you create. You already remember from your own experience how time passes beautifully at such times. This highly focused state is called "flow" in modern psychology. But we will talk about this in detail later.
That's what I take from Camus as a practice for my own life. He just seems a bit pessimistic when he gives these messages. Don't make a big deal out of it. Be you, as Camus says, know that life is nothing, but live it with care. Don't make the gods happy by committing suicide, fight and be better beaten. Slow down your life so that you can live and relive the beautiful memory and speed up so that you can forget the pain.
Life ending in death is absurd, yes. There is no doubt about that. But just because life ends in death, are we going to close our eyes and the doors of our hearts to the beauties of this beautiful world, to the pain and despair of people? Since we are alive, we should try to be happy as long as we live, to create happiness to the left and right of us. Happiness is loving the world and loving people, somewhere and everywhere, without expecting anything.
— Albert Camus
Camus, who offers us various perspectives on existence and the meaninglessness of life, was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1957. He didn't care much about it, as you can imagine. Interestingly, at the last minute, he gave up taking the train and got into his publisher's car, hit a tree and died. I wonder how he would have interpreted his own death, could there be a more absurd death for a man who had struggled so much with the meaninglessness of life? Absurd.
‘Why are people born? Why do they die? Why do they want to spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?’ (The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy , p. 119) – it is only to say that ultimately there is probably no reason for any of it. Adams’ conclusion that forty-two is the ‘answer’ to the question, ‘What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?’, aims to illustrate that there is really no satisfactory answer and that the problem lies in the question itself.
Un-ask the question, as the Buddhists say. Un-ask it. It is meaningless to ask some questions since there is no answer that we can come up with. Then un-ask it. Do not bother. Is that the answer to all your moaning an groaning? I am afraid not.
Then he says:
The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
Rebellion? Do I want to be rebellious? I want peace. I want ataraxia. There must be another way but if Camus says be a rebel, hell yeah I am a rebel now.
Other Quotes from Camus to Ease(Amplify?) Your Pain
“There is no love of life without the despair of life”
"The only way to deal with fear is to face it."
"In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer."
"The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth."
"The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor."
"The only true happiness comes from squandering ourselves for a purpose."
"But in the end one needs more courage to live than to kill himself."
"There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn."
Find meaning. Distinguish melancholy from sadness. Go out for a walk. It doesn’t have to be a romantic walk in the park, spring at its most spectacular moment, flowers and smells and outstanding poetical imagery smoothly transferring you into another world. It doesn’t have to be a walk during which you’ll have multiple life epiphanies and discover meanings no other brain ever managed to encounter. Do not be afraid of spending quality time by yourself. Find meaning or don’t find meaning but 'steal' some time and give it freely and exclusively to your own self. Opt for privacy and solitude. That doesn’t make you antisocial or cause you to reject the rest of the world. But you need to breathe. And you need to be.
“Real generosity towards the future lies in giving all to the present.”
“Man is always prey to his truths. Once he has admitted them, he cannot free himself from them.”
“A person’s life purpose is nothing more than to rediscover, through the detours of art or love or passionate work, those one or two images in the presence of which his heart first opened.”
"To be happy we must not be too concerned with others."
"I do not believe in God and I am not an atheist."
"I shall tell you a great secret, my friend. Do not wait for the last judgment, it takes place every day."