"The absurd is born out of the confrontation between human need and the unreasonable silence of the world."
Albert Camus always rejected the title of "existentialist", and for a good reason: he wasn't one. Camus was a very different breed of thinker, whose ideas were close to existential in nature, but veered off into new territory. Camus's theory revolved around the absurdity of humans attempts to find meaning in a meaningless world.
The absurd, according to Camus, is caused by two conflicting elements: man and the world. He writes:
“The absurd is not in man nor in the world, but in their presence together. . . it is the only bond uniting them."
Once it is realized that life has no discernible purpose, what then is the point of living? Camus answers this question in The Myth of Sisyphus, ironically in the first and last lines of the essay:
"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy." (4)
"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." (122)
The absurd, according to Camus, is caused by two conflicting elements: man and the world. He writes:
“The absurd is not in man nor in the world, but in their presence together. . . it is the only bond uniting them."
Once it is realized that life has no discernible purpose, what then is the point of living? Camus answers this question in The Myth of Sisyphus, ironically in the first and last lines of the essay:
"There is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question of philosophy." (4)
"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy." (122)