Last week, a person died of
a heart attack in San Jose, California 

She was a long-time sufferer of anorexia,
but tried to move past her pain.

Earlier this month, she confessed
that she'd found a goal to live a life,
a reason to eat and become healthy

Cruelly, her life was cut short.

How could this happen?
What had it all been for?

Do our lives have
inherent meaning?

One philosopher tried,
all throughout his life,
to answer this very question.

Before him, many others had tried their hand.

Existentialists asserted,
“Each is responsible for creating
life’s meaning amidst the chaotic world.”

But according to
Albert Camus…

Humans have
an innate desire
to derive
 meaning from life

Alas, the universe is
indifferent to
these desires.

The Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu,
made his thoughts clear on the subject

Heaven and Earth
are not kind,
They regard all things
as straw-dogs

As he put it,
humans and the universe
were at odds
with each other.

Any hope of
compromise or concession,
it’s fundamentally absurd.

There may not be
an explanation for
this absurdity, as he saw it.

But to abandon this search
is the truest expression
of our free will.

If people all over the world
are chasing evidence
of pre-determination,
how dull would that be?

Creativity is
the greatest act of
rebellion.

If the world
is indifferent,
I can live
my life for myself!

Think of the two different people 

One chasing
a life’s purpose,
never knowing that
she determines it.

And one who freely
makes choices,
embracing the sheer
randomness
and absurdity.

Camus’s book
“The Myth of Sisyphus: Absurd Creation”
observes:

If life had any reason,
art would not exist

He relates the story of Sisyphus,
a man who continually rolls a stone
to the top of a mountain…
only for it to roll back down to the bottom again.

It was then that Sisyphus recognized
the fruitlessness of his effort.
He thought for himself and,
in doing so, was free from his punishment.

In the end,
I can move the stone
to the top

The definition of insanity is
doing something over and over,
and achieving the same result.

Sisyphus was proud of
his realization,
or so Camus thought.

The human spirit rebels
against the injustice
of an unfeeling universe,
until its death.

Camus died in 1960,
at the unripe age of 47
- the result of an absurd car accident.

Life is absurd

Still, humanity fights
through the power of creativity.
In a world devoid of meaning,
we make our own