Camus is my Homeboy

(This post is an unintended but logical continuation of Thrown into existance.
And all appearances of cigarettes in my mouth is purely put there for artistic purposes to pose as a tough guy to the camera... I might have failed )

Me and my homie havin' a smoke, doin' some talkin, chillin' u know

Finished reading Camus' Myth of Sisyphus and it is an inspiring work indeed. Vital to life on this planet I'd say. A must read for the nihil seekers as well as the pessimists without goals. And a good torch to light the way for a wanderer like myself.

Camus starts it all up with the statement:

There is only one really serious philosophical question, and that is suicide. Deciding whether or not life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy. All other questions follow from that.

Or in other words:

Does the realization of the meaninglessness and absurdity of life require suicide?

With this Camus sets off to discuss the topic in a couple of essays, debating on the absurd, freedom, the arts and of course Sisyphus. The man who defied the (Greek) Gods by choosing life over death. By doingso he was sentenced to do an endless, useless, seemingly meaningless task - but in finding meaning in the task he continues to defy the gods and the weight of the punishment fails to stop him. He knows his cliff is his and he controls his destiny. He is his own master. One could saySisyphus was happy.

Franz Stuck's depiction of Sisyphus

Camus goes on to reject religion and their promises of happiness later - life is now. He is no fan of totalitairianisms like Communism either, something Sartre was a fan of and the other extremes on the right. Systems which put the success of the politics ahead of the individual can never be accepted. (This is also where Camus and Sartre part their ways)

Camus don’t reject the torments and hurts of life, on the contrary you need salt to feel the sweet - there’s no black without white. Life shouldn't be reduced and simplified, one shouldn't rely on hope but instead face the present.

Camus abruptly cuts off all the exits of hope. Man, each one of us, dies. Unlike all else in creation, we know we die. We do not live forever. We must therefore live and live fully the life that we have.

He sums up the characteristics in a man that has understood his share in life. He knows he is in a prison and accepts the limits. Camus calls him l’ homme absurde. Living without nostalgia and death as his only enemy. His hope is for life, not for the future or for the past. Life is full of possibilities. These he accepts. These form his joy.

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Just a brief general write-up on existentialism and the existentialist. The “school” is not a typical philosophical one since it doesn’t set up a full set of rules covering all aspects of life. But more a general train of thoughts with some basic ideas.

Six basic themes of Existentialism:

1. Man is conscious subject rather than a thing to be predicted or manipulated.

2. Anxiety -- a generalized uneasiness. The dread of the nothingness of human existence. This dark picture of human life leads existentialists to reject ideas such as happiness and a sense of well being.

3. Absurdity -- Each of us is simply here, having been thrown into this time and place, but why now?

4. Nothingness -- "I am my own existence, but my existence is nothingness."

5. Death -- The only certainty of life which hangs over existentialist head at each moment of life.

6. Alienation -- apart from the existentialists own conscious being, everything else is "otherness", from which he or she estranged.

And among the persons associated with existentialism, most of them has under some part of their life denied beeing a part of the movement. Camus, Sartre and Heidegger all did it. And two other central personas - Kierkegaard and Nietzsche - were too early to be grouped among the other existentialists. Corbett suggests reading the works of the thinkers associated with existentialism is the best way to define their way rather than setting up a frame or some rules.

One always dies too soon - or too late. And yet one's whole life is complete at that moment, with a line drawn neatly under it, ready for the summing up. You are - your life, and nothing else.”

We are alone, with no excuses. That is the idea I shall try to convey when I say that man is condemned to be free. Condemned, because he did not create himself, yet, in other respects is free; because, once thrown into the world, he is responsible for everything he does.

Jean-Paul Sartre

I know of only one duty, and that is to love

Albert again

All is Good

Dostoevsky