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Why live, if we鈥檙e going to die?

This was a key question for Albert Camus, a handsome, Nobel Prize winning French philosopher. Camus believed that death steals the meaning from life鈥娾€斺€妛hat鈥檚 the point of living if all that awaits us is a cold, worm-infested grave? God is dead, and an eternal afterlife is longer a possibility. Without religion to save us, how can we live with the pointlessness of existence, with the absurdity of it all?

Lyrical and Critical Essays is a volume of stories and essays in which Camus explores this fundamental question, shedding further light on the ideas expressed in his novels.

While travelling in Italy in 1937, the following reflection encapsulates the problem that Camus was wrestling with:

鈥淚taly, like other privileged places, offers me the spectacle of a beauty in which, nonetheless, men die.鈥濃€娾€斺€奣he Desert

What is the point in such beauty existing, and for us to experience that beauty, if it鈥檚 destined to be forever lost? How can we muster the strength to go on in the face of our inevitable death? Camus experienced undeniable natural beauty, but bristled with anguish at its meaninglessness. Things happen, we experience them, and then we die. Metaphysical significance cannot be found in anything.

鈥淭he air grows cool. A foghorn sounds at sea. The beams from the lighthouse begin to turn: one green, one red, and one white. And still the world sighs its long sigh.鈥濃€娾€斺€夿etween Yes and No

We鈥檙e on a perpetual merry-go-round, with the same tired tune from the same tired speakers, crushing us into relentless anguish and despair.

鈥淗is fever sings. He walks a little faster; tomorrow everything will be different, tomorrow. Suddenly he realizes that tomorrow will be the same, and, after tomorrow, all the other days. And he is crushed by this irreparable discovery. It鈥檚 ideas like this that kill one.鈥濃€娾€斺€奍rony

Camus found his answer to the meaninglessness of life in a tenacious, immutable acceptance of our sorry condition. We鈥檙e going to die, and there鈥檚 nothing we can do to change that, so rather than wallowing in anguish at our situation, why not just accept it? This acceptance is a form of rebellion against the merciless impotency of existence鈥娾€斺€奍鈥檓 going to die, but fuck you, I鈥檒l accept it nonetheless.

鈥淎t this extreme point of acute awareness everything came together, and my life seemed a solid block to be accepted or rejected. I needed a grandeur. I found it in the confrontation between my deep despair and the secret indifference of one of the most beautiful landscapes in the world.鈥濃€娾€斺€奃eath In The Soul

The battle between Camus鈥� despair of the futility of life, and the indifference of the world, amounts to a decision between acceptance or rejection. Between living fully, or throwing your hands up and committing suicide.

鈥淭here is only one really serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide.鈥濃€娾€斺€奣he Myth of Sisyphus
Why live, if we鈥檙e going to die?

Affirming every aspect of our lives won鈥檛 necessarily lessen our despair, but we shouldn鈥檛 want to lessen our despair, because this is also a part of life to be accepted. Fantasising of another life is a tragedy鈥娾€斺€妎ur own can be dazzling with the right perspective.

鈥淔or if there is a sin against life, it lies perhaps less in despairing of it than in hoping for another life and evading the implacable grandeur of the one we have.鈥濃€娾€斺€奡ummer in Algiers

鈥淚 love this life with abandon and wish to speak of it boldly: it makes me proud of my human condition.鈥濃€娾€斺€奛uptials at Tipasa

One cannot remove the negative from life without also removing the positive. The negative can only be identified because of the existence of positive. Take away despair, and you must also remove its natural contrast: joy.

鈥淭here is no love of life without despair of life.鈥濃€娾€斺€奣he Wrong Side and the Right Side

鈥淏ut if we give up a part of what exists, we must ourselves give up being; we must then give up living or loving except by proxy. Thus there is a will to live without refusing anything life offers: the virtue I honor most in this world.鈥濃€娾€斺€奟eturn to Tipasa

鈥淚n the difficult times we face, what more can I hope for than the power to exclude nothing and to learn to weave from strands of black and white one rope tautened to the breaking point?鈥濃€娾€斺€奟eturn to Tipasa

There鈥檚 nothing for it but an unbridled acceptance of everything that happens to us, and by existing in this way, we鈥檙e rebelling against the absurdity of our human condition. Shunning the world does nothing to alter its uncompromising indifference; only affirmation can provide us with the determination to continue living.

鈥淚f an anguish still clutches me, it鈥檚 when I feel this impalpable moment slip through my fingers like quicksilver. Let those who wish to turn their backs upon the world. I have nothing to complain of, since I can see myself being born.鈥濃€娾€斺€奣he Wrong Side and the Right Side

Camus found unending solace in natural beauty, and the sensual abilities that allow us to receive the world. Awareness of every spectacular triviality was enough for him, despite their lack of meaning. Simply experiencing the world was the point.

鈥淲hat counts is to be true, and then everything fits in, humanity and simplicity. When am I truer than when I am the world? My cup brims over before I have time to desire. Eternity is there and I was hoping for it. What I wish for now is no longer happiness but simply awareness.鈥濃€娾€斺€奣he Wrong Side and the Right Side

鈥淢illions of eyes, I knew, had gazed at this landscape, and for me it was like the first smile of the sky. It took me out of myself in the deepest sense of the word. It assured me that but for my love and the wondrous cry of these stones, there was no meaning in anything. The world is beautiful, and outside it there is no salvation.鈥濃€娾€斺€奣he Desert

鈥淗ow many hours have I spent crushing absinthe leaves, caressing ruins, trying to match my breathing with the world鈥檚 tumultuous sighs! Deep among wild scents and concerts of somnolent insects, I open my eyes and heart to the unbearable grandeur of this heat-soaked sky.鈥濃€娾€斺€奛uptials at Tipasa

Only by living honestly, by accepting our absurd condition completely and without restraint, can we expel the terror of our impending doom. Our efforts should be placed on the body, in our ability to perceive and appreciate the awesome wonder all around us. Only there can meaning be found. Bitter, often uncomfortable, but meaning nonetheless.

鈥淭he immortality of the soul, it is true, engrosses many noble minds. But this is because they reject the body, the only truth that is given them, before using up its strength. For the body presents no problems, or, at least, they know the only solution it proposes: a truth which must perish and which thus acquires a bitterness and nobility they dare not contemplate directly.鈥濃€娾€斺€奣he Desert

鈥淚t is not surprising that the sensual riches this country offers so profusely to the sensitive person should coincide with the most extreme deprivation. There is no truth that does not also carry bitterness.鈥濃€娾€斺€奡ummer in Algiers

What we need most of all is the fearlessness to accept everything that comes our way, good or bad. We must positively affirm every experience鈥娾€斺€妎pen our arms to receive it, and be consequent rebels.

鈥淭he great courage is still to gaze as squarely at the light as at death.鈥濃€娾€斺€奣he Wrong Side and the Right Side

鈥淭here are some people who prefer to look their destiny straight in the eye.鈥濃€娾€斺€夿etween Yes and No

Why live, if we鈥檙e going to die? Because life can be spectacular with the right attitude. We鈥檒l experience everything that is thrown at us鈥娾€斺€妀oy, agony, depression, hope, lust, love, ambivalence鈥娾€斺€奱nd by accepting all of it, we鈥檙e rebelling valiantly against the absurdity and meaninglessness of existence. Only through acceptance can we truly be free.