The Absurdity of Human Existence by Albert Camus Essay Example

as well as their own existence.

The everyday challenge given to every human being is that he or she must be able to find solutions to the uncanny things that the world gives him or her. Thus, life and existence themselves are the challengers of human beings. By absurd freedom, Camus means that human beings live in deep anxiety about how they should live their lives. They are situated in a world in which they know nothing but to live yet what lies after it is a complete puzzle for them and for their existence. They are free to define their beings. They are free to fill their lives with everything they want.

They are free to continue existing. However, they do not comprehend the realm of their existence. They struggle to live just to be put to death after their fate asks for their lives. Another thing that puzzles them is the idea that while a supreme being like a God can do exist even without human beings, the purpose or reason why human beings are destined to live in this world is unknown. Hence, human beings face nothing but their nothingness and the nothingness that the world offers them. The Myth of Sisyphus explains the attempt of human beings to keep their existence.

They choose to live even the midst of nothing and unexplainable reality. Like Sisyphus, human beings struggle to live their lives as the former attempts to successfully roll the stone up which in the end will always go downward. Camus explains this phenomenon as the effort to understand the ungraspable world and the nothingness of existence. The

moral of the myth which can really be applied to reality is the undying hope which lies in the heart of Sisyphus that he would eventually succeed in rolling the stone upward though he knows that it will soon go down.

Human beings try to understand the strangeness of his existence though he will never be able to do so. Nevertheless, the hope that remains in the heart of human beings allows them to become immune or used to the features of undefined existence. As Sisyphus became used to his task in the underworld, human beings also became impervious to the chaotic setting that the world provides them. In the end, they persist to live and struggle to know the unknowable world.

Reference: Camus, A. (1999). The Absurdity of Human Existence (Second ed. ). Oxford University Press.