The Absurd

While the word is currently used to refer to a kind of dry, ironic situation, The Absurd has a rich philosophical tradition most closely associated with the writings of Albert Camus. What are we to do with the question of life’s meaning, especially in the face of its persistent unanswerability? Camus says that “one must imagine Sisyphus happy,” but this is no simple task. In modern times, it seems we can find countless echoes of the loop Sisyphus is stuck in, from the eternal scroll of social media to the endless stream of new variants and vaccines; how do you access the repetitions of our lives where meaning escapes our grasp, and The Absurd is all that remains?