A keystone text in approaching Theatre of the Absurd is Camus' essay "The Myth of Sisyphus", allegorising the Greek parable of hubris to the search for meaning in life. In this Greek tale, Sisyphus is condemned by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill, only to watch it fall down again, for the rest of his life. Camus states that the Sisyphian situation is akin to the human situation: we are condemned to perpetually fulfilling a task (it may be any task, even the task of living) in the full knowledge that, as we are unable to comprehend any superior meaning to life, the efforts put into the task are futile. This may, on the surface appear a somewhat bleak and macabre point for Camus to make, leading to a nihilistic approach that life is meaningless, and that there is and will only ever be nothing. It is the dark points like these that philosophers make that put a lot of people off of philosophy, me included - I have no time whatsoever for people who woefully bemoan the meaningless of life. However, this is where Camus stands out.
Instead of conceding to the meaninglessness of life in nihilistic despair, Camus embraces what he refers to as 'the absurd' acknowledging the freedom it bestows upon oneself. Camus essentially states that in a world without meaning, mankind is completely free to create his or her own meaning - and what a wonderful gift this is! Having read some of his work, I feel so in tune with this philosophy. Whilst reading The Plague I found myself exclaiming gasps of realisation at the certain moments when Camus so eloquently portrays the absurdity of the absurd. Having built my knowledge and understanding of the absurd through wider research and reading - when it came to The Outsider I could not help myself bursting out with sympathy and approval of the somewhat macabre Meursault. I was hooked, and, despite it's bleak overtones, I found the underlying message so empowering and enlightening. I feel that it is so necessary to expose this side of existentialism - a school of thought that often seems bleak and dark, and now I can see that this are completely undeserved labels!
Facing one of the fundamental questions in philosophical though, albeit at a fairly low level, but at an extremely important time in my life, I cannot stress how important an influence Camus has been on me. I feel it is all to easy, for someone like me at my age, to get too bogged down in these deep questions, and get fairly upset about the situation we find ourselves in, and on the whole that these situations are often quite unhelpful. On the contrary, Camus has been brilliant for me, and what's more, truly life changing.
