People all over the world are always chasing meaning. Trying to serve a greater purpose, gain more followers, chase money, or follow their own materialistic wants. They chase what they think is important without taking their own joy into account. People chase goals without real passion, which makes them seem fake. They chase what other people would want them to without being able to see the bigger picture. People fail to see that nothing truly matters. There is no true purpose to life, no end goal that all people should strive for. In a way, life is meaningless.
Absurdism is the philosophical belief that humanity’s innate search for meaning is in direct conflict with an indifferent, meaningless universe. While that sounds like gibberish, the takeaway is that this world has no meaning whatsoever. This school of thought comes from the French philosopher Albert Camus. Camus did not want people to feel despair at the meaninglessness of the world, but rather look at it as a blank page.
While yes, there is no meaning to anything, that doesn’t mean people shouldn’t chase meaning. Not having a purpose is the perfect reason to do what you love. In a meaningless world, the only thing that can be done is to find joy in the things that you do. To live a life of any amount of success, a person must make their own meaning. Maybe your passion is for art, painting beautiful pieces of artwork, for many to see, or something more mundane like keeping a perfectly manicured yard. Regardless of what it is, finding meaning and joy in any aspect of life is why people are here on this Earth.
Camus uses the story of Sisyphus to truly get his point across. Sisyphus was a Greek king who was punished to push a boulder up a hill, and have it roll back down the other side, only for him to have to push it back up for eternity. Sisyphus saw no change in his condition, and he was leaving no impact on the world in any way, pursuing his futile task. His life was meaningless. Many other philosophers looked at this story as just another Greek hero punished for their hubris, but Camus looked at it a different way. What if Sisyphus was happy? What if he was able to find joy in his task? If he found joy, then does that give his life meaning? The answer is yes, his life does have meaning.
The moral of that story is that life can seem meaningless. There will be times where it feels like everything you do is futile, but to find meaning is to find joy in every aspect of your life, even the smaller parts that might seem like they don’t matter. Do something that you find joy in, even if it is something mundane. Maybe you like to clean, and you find joy in that, then clean. Or you like to go for runs daily, then run. Maybe you find joy in something that is vastly important, like saving lives, then you should chase the goal of saving lives. Regardless of what the task is, if you find joy in it, then you have found meaning in this meaningless world.
Chase what you want to chase. Other people may look at your life and wonder why someone would ever want that, but in the end, the only opinion that matters is your own. Find your meaning and chase it with all the passion in your heart. If you are to take anything from this editorial, it is that everyone has meaning; you just have to find it.
