Albert Camus said that the absurdity of the human condition is that people search for external values and meanings in a world that has none and is indifferent to them. (Way to put a damper on the spirits Al.)
What I find absurd is the idea that searching for meaning is ridiculous, when it has been found that the people who live the longest are very often those who believe that their life has some essential purpose, however small that may be.
Camus was not so hot in finding meaning in the every day. Rather he said to hell with the external world, what we think about where we are and who we are is mostly irrational and bizarre. In fact, he probably would have considered that this attempt to infuse my life with meaning by searching for it in the tangible world was a waste of time.
Asked who we are most of us will respond with a name, a nationality and perhaps an occupation, (or previous occupation) however, Camus pointed out that we would not be any less ourself if we had a different name, or occupation and that the true essence of self is separate from our worldy ties. According to this existential thinker, to focus on the physical understanding of ourselves is to elude ourselves from discovering who we truly are.
To a point I agree that one can become caught up in trying to seek a recognisable, communicable sense of identity. Although we might not like others to label us, it is often easier to be able to label ourselves - I am a mother, a father, a lawyer, a train driver, a football fan, an activist, a cross-country runner, a vegetarian, a person who does not break the law. But what sort of person am I, what is in my soul?
Well that's terribly deep stuff and quite frankly, I am not sure that I feel it necessary to go messing about in the dark down there with my very essence of self - who knows what I might turn up, or whether I would like what I found.
It can be argued that if we judge ourself on who we are in the deepest sense that there is no standard against which we should measure our behaviour. The beauty of self-assessment should be that there are no absolutes that we must live up to. However, I am clearly not as detached as Mr. Camus would have advised that I become; my moral compass has been set since childhood, with few adjustments and I am very disappointed in myself when I fail to follow the course that I see fit, even when little actual harm is done.
I cannot help but think that we are creatures who like to receive gold stars and to know where we lie on the league table. We crave limitations as much as we rebel against them and most of us, no matter who we think we are, or where we came from, have some sense of how we believe we fare on the barometer of 'giving life a shot'.
However, often where we believe that we have fallen down we accept this and chalk up this mistake as a flaw or weakness in our character, a class in which we will never achieve a grade higher than a D+.
If I am to learn any lesson from Camus perhaps it should be that when it comes to the inner self, there is no score card or permanent record and that there is no point living in the shadow of some self-registered failure. Any sense of failure is all in the mind and if I can move on and leave it behind, it may be possible to reestablish a new sense of who I am and what I am worth.
So you want to be that strong, brave, self-assured, kind of spirit and generous person? It sounds to me like Camus is saying that any of us can wake up and be that person. If it's all in the head, surely any leopard can change their spots? Which means that life can mean whatever you want it to mean. There's no greater freedom than that.
Who knew freedom would seem so easy but yet be so tremendously difficult to achieve? And here was I slithering out from under the duvet every morning and thinking it was enough just to be up and myself, even if that was a sometimes pissed off, often confused individual. And now I find out that I can't even blame my culture or my upbringing for who I am? This meaning of life thing gets tougher and tougher the closer it gets to home and no less ridiculous.
Still, I'm convinced that to keep looking is something in itself and even if it is just another label, to search for a purpose is purpose enough for today. So, I'm a blogger, a person who questions why she is here, a messy eater, a lover of literature, a pale-face in the winter time and a person who is always late. It's a good start to know that I can change (the constant tardiness) and probably not a bad thing that I wouldn't change quite everything (I'll keep my literature and my blogging for now thank you).
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