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Better Perspectives on the Absurdity of Human Life The absurd is a term used commonly by philosophers to represent the conflict between human tendency to find the meaning of life and their inability to find any. Absurdity characterizes a world that no longer makes sense to its inhabitants, in which rational decisions are impossible and all action is meaningless and futile (Galens, 2007). Absurdist believes that human effort to find the meaning of life will ultimately fail since there is no such meaning exists. They tend to believe that everything in this life is meaningless, since no matter how they try to chase that meaning, all they can get is just the unreasonable silence of the world. It will be easy to see the absurd if ones life is deprived, struggling until he dies. However, if one has a proper life economically for example, the problem will appear in the lack of purpose in life which once again leads to the meaninglessness of life. This perspective in philosophy is well known as absurdism and it is often related to negative connotation words such as dark, meaningless and hopeless. Many believe that there is only one way to solve this problem, suicide, since life is meaningless (Galens, 2007). If life has no meaning at all then there is no worth living it. One must realize that eventually he must die, so there is no need struggling to live and it will be better to end life and accept death. This has been a common option to encounter the absurdity in life. Nevertheless, two philosophers appeared with different perspectives to face the problem of this absurdity. They are Soren Kierkegaard with his book, The Sickness unto Death and Albert Camus with his philosophical essays, The Myth of Sisyphus. They rejected suicide and generated brighter options to deal with absurdity in human life.

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In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard explains that all human being live in despair (Kierkegaard, 1982). Despair refers to the condition of lacking reason to live which later leads human to have no exact purpose in living life. This perspective is comparable to the common issue in absurdism that life is meaningless. Instead of accomplishing suicide, Kierkegaard describes that the despair can be encountered by taking a leap of faith, which means emphasizing the existence of God (Kierkegaard, 1982). If life is meaningless, the only way to survive is by believing in an abstract presence where human can rely to. Human life is not complete unless it is fulfilled by the presence of God. Human race need to have faith in an almighty presence that creates, rules, and controls them. I take an example from a famous novel by Mary W Shelley, Frankenstein (1818), a story when a human tries to surpass the power of God by creating another living human. Instead of creating a normal human, he invented a monster. The monster then struggled demanding his creator the reason of his creation. Loosing direction, he was fulfilled by anger and rage. He strained to find the purpose of his existence but he could not find any. At the end of the story, he died in despair. The meaninglessness of the monsters life represents the common problem of human life. People are questioning their existence. Kierkegaard believes that there is only one way to escape this, by having faith in God. If human are questioning, God has all the answers. Still in the same subject, Camus with The Myth of Sisyphus serves another option. He is in the same opinion with Kierkegaard to reject suicide, considering it is irrational and too passive. However, he also rejected Kierkegaard option , the leap of faith. He emphasized that by having faith in God, one is also committing philosophical suicide (Camus, 1995). People must

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realize that the feeling of the absurd exists and can happen to them at any time. The absurd person must demand to live solely with what is known and to bring in nothing that is not certain. This means that all I know is that I exist, that the world exists, and that I am mortal. He came with another option which he calls the acceptance of the absurd, that human do not need the meaning of their existence and they should live their live as what it is (Foley, 2008). In doing so, Camus elaborates three characteristics of the absurd life; revolt, passion, and freedom. Revolt, human must not accept any answer or reconciliation in our struggle in life (Camus, 1995). If one needs answer of his existence, he has to find it out by himself. Passion, human must pursue life of rich and diverse experience. Freedom, human is free to think and behave as they choose which means, a man has unlimited control of himself and he has right to do anything he wants (Camus, 1995). The main point in this essay is the story of a Greek legend named Sisyphus, a man who was punished to roll up a rock to the top of mountain only to have it roll back to the bottom. He did this for all eternity. Camus tries to show that Sisyphus is an absurd hero as in: as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing." (Camus, 1995) Sisyphus is conscious of his struggling during the moments of descent. However, he did not keep the result that he would never success, but Sisyphus is clearly conscious of the extent of his own misery. He believed that his effort would conquer its torment. It is this logical recognition of his destiny that transforms his misery into his victory. The story shows that no

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matter how meaningless life is, it is still worth living it and human being has all the requirements to live a proper life. If we take a deep thinking, we will find out that life is meaningless. Human comes from nothing and will come back to nothing. Kierkegaard believes that the existence of God completes the imperfect human life while Camus is certain that life is life itself, that human should live by revolting, having passion and chasing freedom. They are very contrast on this topic but actually they have something in common. They reject suicide and try to draw new ways to live which is not to surrender to death. Therefore, one can live better. There is no exact reason why human live, but it is still valuable to live a life.

Written by Ahmad (clownplayground.wordpress.com) Bibliography

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Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus and other Essays. New York: Vintage Book, 1995. Foley, John. Albert Camus from the Absurd to Revolt. New York: McGill Queen's Press, 2008. Galens, David. Absurdism. 2007. BookRags, Inc. 12 February 2011 <http://www.bookrags.com/studyguide-absurdism/>. Kierkegaard, Soren. The Sickness unto Death. London: Oxford University Press, 1982. Shelley, Mary W. Frankenstein. London, 1818.