Albert Camus is one of the greatest French
writers and thinkers. He was a philosopher, an author and a journalist. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957
and his most famous works are The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus, The Fall,
and The Rebel. Camus is one of the most representative figures
of the philosophy of the “absurd” or “absurdism,” which is a philosophical movement having as
its central hypothesis that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe. Albert Camus is sometimes referred to as an
existentialist, but he rejected this term throughout his life, because he wanted to
distance himself from the existentialism of Sartre. Camus considered that absolute freedom must
be balanced with absolute justice - too much freedom leads to the situation when the strong
suppresses the weak but too much justice kills freedom, and we need to live and let live,
while Sartre considered freedom as a constant given, that humans are condemned to be free
and that it is possible to achieve social and political freedom and justice at the same
time, without compromise. As a promoter of the philosophy of the “absurd”,
Camus believed that life has no meaning, that the universe simply exists and that it is
indifferent to people’s lives. We are like Sisyphus from Greek mythology,
forever carrying that heavy rock to the top of the hill, although we know the rock will
always fall down and our life's work is meaningless. Our condition might be tragic, but Camus considered
that this exact condition hides a blessing in disguise: life does not have a meaning,
but we are free to attribute it any meaning we want. His philosophy has inspired a lot of people
in dealing with the absurdity of life and even today, his philosophy is extremely relevant,
which is why in this video we bring you 7 life lessons from Albert Camus which can help
us appreciate the absurdity of life: 1) Create your own meaning for life
Camus says “You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” According to the philosophy of the absurd,
life is meaningless, man’s existence is absurd as there is no justification for it. Regarding the meaninglessness of life, Camus
seems close to Arthur Schopenhauer. However, Camus is different because he considered
that human beings have the power to create their own meaning of life, while Schopenhauer
didn’t consider that life can have a meaning at all - that life is suffering and human
beings are driven by a powerful and invisible force called the Will - and we don’t actually
have any control over it. Camus believed that human values do not have
a solid external component. Everything is man-made and Camus proposes
three ways to deal with the absurdity of life: suicide, faith or acceptance. Suicide and faith are irrational escapes from
addressing the contradiction between the human desire for meaning and the indifference of
the universe. By suicide, the person removes the physical
form that was in charge of finding the life’s meaning and, without the human mind, the absurd
cannot exist. Through faith, the human being embraces irrationality
and arrives at a certain concept regarding life’s meaning which defies rationality. Camus also considered faith a type of suicide,
namely a philosophical suicide, because faith defies rationality, irrationality being the
opposite of a philosophical argument. After removing suicide and faith as acceptable
ways to address the absurd, the only thing which remains is acceptance. Acceptance leads to individual freedom, you
can create new meanings and you can even create yourself. Acceptance is in essence Camus’ core belief
in how someone should live their life. The sooner you accept that life has no absolute
meaning and that it is only you who has the power to create its meaning, the sooner you
can become free and only from that point can you really start to live your life. There is no absolute meaning of life, the
meaning of your life is different to the meaning of somebody else’s. To apply this lesson in your life, you should
stop thinking that your life must be in this or that particular way, that you need to become
a doctor or you need to make a certain amount of money per year, or that you need to have
so-and-so many children. Instead, you should delete all of these stories
and consider that no one is watching you, that you are absolutely free to choose how
your life will be. Your life has the meaning that you give to
it and you can change this meaning at any point. For example, if you spent the last 10 years
working in a bank and life now feels boring, you might get stuck looking for the meaning
of life in earning more and more money, in making your parents proud, or in making your
colleagues and friends envious of you. But most likely this is not a meaning you
chose, rather you got this meaning through your life circumstances; you didn’t choose
it. But it is you who can always turn your life
around: you can start over, redefine your own meaning, maybe this time you might choose
to explore the world, to change your career, to be a travel writer and moving from country
to country, leaving behind your previous banking career. You never have to live your life in a pre-prescribed
way; it can be whatever you choose. 2) Don’t make happiness a distant goal
According to Camus: “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's
heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” What most of us crave above all else is 'security',
the feeling that we are, at last, safe. We pin our hopes for security on a shifting
variety of goals: a happy relationship, a house, children, a good profession, respect,
a certain amount of money and so on. When these become ours, we think, we will
finally be at peace. But happily ever after is not a realistic
goal, we are never satisfied with the things we get, we will always want more. The more we chase for the things we believe
we want, often the more unhappy we become. The secret is to learn to enjoy the process
and to not mind so much about the goals. The more we can enjoy the process of achieving
our goals, the happier we become and the final goals can even start becoming irrelevant. As Camus said, we need to imagine Sisyphus
as being happy. In the myth, Sisyphus is punished by the gods
and sentenced to make him climb a rock to the top of a mountain only to see it fall,
over and over again. This can be seen as an analogy for modern
life. Given these conditions, there is only one
way to be happy: to focus more on the process, on the joy of climbing the rock to the top
and to not worry about the fall. In the same way, we can learn to become happy
in our daily life. For example, if you are a student and your
goal is to graduate, instead of imagining yourself happy at the end of the university
program with your diploma in your hand, it is better to make yourself love the process
of learning, of going to school, meeting your colleagues, debating the class and so on. Do not wait for the moment you reach your
goals to be happy, that moment of happiness is too short anyway; so rather you should
learn to be present in the moment. 3) Don’t be ignorant
Camus tells us: “The evil that is in the world almost always comes from ignorance,
and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence if they lack understanding.” Albert Camus lived at the beginning and during
the middle of the 20th century, he had a tumultuous life and he senses that the world is in need
of a new and simpler morality, based on fairness and team spirit. He was in France when the German tanks reached
Paris during World War 2. He couldn’t fight as a soldier during the
war because of his physical condition, but he fought with his pen, he joined the French
Resistance and all his life he wrote on the behalf of the oppressed and against the authoritarian
regimes. During his lifetime, he did face evil and
he came to the conclusion that the root of all the evil in this world is ignorance. In other words, the man with the right information
and knowledge would always choose to do no harm to others. We live in an interconnected world and we
are social beings, therefore no man with enough intelligence would choose to harm others,
as the harm would come back to him eventually. The morality of absurdism is very much rooted
in empathy and the practical aspects of life, having a lot to do with fraternity between
people and the application of fairness principles. We need to get informed before judging any
action of another. Also, we need to learn to take things less
personally, not every attack against us is because of us, maybe somebody else hurt that
person and that person doesn’t know how to deal with their own emotions and the only
way we can break this vicious cycle of hate is by refusing to continue the hate. For example, imagine your spouse coming back
home from work and getting angry at you for something very small, like why you forgot
to take out the trash in the morning. Instead of replying back with the same anger,
you should reply calmly and also try to get more information.Perhaps ask what happened
in their work and what bothered them today. Being ignorant to other people and taking
everything personally would be highly damaging to all relationships in your life. Therefore, try to get more knowledge about
the lives of others and the emotions they go through, and try to break the cycles of
hate. 4) Be a rebel
To quote Camus: “I rebel; therefore I exist.” In the vision of Albert Camus, a rebel is
someone who learned to say no. We need to get rid of the desire to please
others, because we would waste our life otherwise. We have only one life to live and we need
to live it more authentically. As an avid reader of Nietzsche, Camus considered
that life must be lived fully, in a free way, that we need to create our own values and
learn to be more in the present. Also, we should not be satisfied in just following
a standard way of living, we need to try unexplored paths in life and have more courage to rebel
against traditional values. However, Camus differentiated himself from
Nietzsche, Camus stood for a balance between freedom and justice and he didn’t embrace
the irresponsible freedom preached by Nietzsche. But, nevertheless, he was seduced by the Nietzschean
call for authenticity and for the courage to break with the traditional norms. Your freedom to be who you are and express
yourself is too precious to be traded for money or for a higher status in society. It would make you feel unhappy and would add
stress to your life, affecting you mentally and even physically. Give yourself the space to create something
new instead of trying to be what everyone expects you to be. To be alive means to rebel. Because we are all different, what was once
good for somebody, may be no good for you at all, today. So it is important to know yourself in order
to know when to rebel. For example, imagine you are given a new job,
to manage a small team in a company. The previous manager was holding meetings
regularly, maybe 3 times per week, to make sure everybody is following the rules. Let’s consider you are a person who hates
meetings, considering them a complete waste of time because nothing gets done and people
don’t even take notes most of the time. Therefore, knowing who you are, you should
decide to rebel against this tradition. You should talk to your superior and tell
them that you want to implement a new type of management, with at least one quick catch-up
chat per day with each member, as one-on-one conversations are always much more effective,
because you can ask much more direct questions and be very specific, while in a meeting,
there is a lot of time wasted with introductions and pleasantries, plus people tend to be less
direct and authentic in a meeting room compared to an one-on-one conversations. With that in mind, you should try to push
your way in life. It will be much more rewarding in the long
run than following the traditional ways of doing things blindly. 5) Spend time with yourself
As Camus so succinctly put it: “Solitude, a luxury of the rich.” Throughout his writings Camus discusses loneliness,
despair and themes of being alone. In today’s world, we live in crowded cities,
we travel in crowded buses and trains and only the rich have the chance to buy luxury
cars, or can afford to live in spacious houses, set apart from the world. Even when you work from home, if you are not
rich enough, you may well have to share your living space with other people. Therefore, the surest way to live in solitude
is to have enough money to afford to live alone, to travel alone, to work alone, and
to spend your holidays on private beaches instead of crowded shores. Money can buy you solitude, although it doesn’t
buy you an absurd life. However, solitude makes it possible for you
to have enough time with yourself to meditate on the absurdity of life, to find out that
life has no meaning but the one you give it. There are many ways out there to get rich,
but it is equally common for rich people to be so stressed out because of their businesses
that they don’t have time for themselves. Therefore, it is important to cultivate a
habit of finding a window of time during your day in which you can be by yourself. For example, instead of lunching with your
colleagues during the work day, you can opt for a sandwich to enjoy while wandering in
a small park beside your office. Or you can wake up one hour earlier to enjoy
the sunrise and meditate on the absurdity of life before your family awakes. Solitude might be a luxury for the rich, but
we can sneak solitary moments into our routine, no matter our income. 6) Be flexible
In the words of Camus: “Blessed are the hearts that can bend; they shall never be
broken.” In Camus’ view, it is very important to
be flexible and tolerant in life. Flexibility doesn’t just help us in dealing
with heartbreaks of romantic relationships, but also in facing some of the world’s biggest
tragedies, including war. The one who can survive in extreme situations
is the one who can adapt the best, according to the theory of evolution itself. Also, some scientists even consider that flexibility
is at the heart of human intelligence. Aron Barbey, Professor of Psychology at The
University of Illinois proposed that the brain’s dynamic properties drive human intelligence. Making smart decisions, adapted to the circumstances,
can prevent our heart from being totally broken and, in time, we can heal. Camus learned this from his own life experience,
when he faced the terror of World War II, when he confronted the stubbornness of his
communist associates from whom he later separated, the clashes between the French colonial forces
and the Arabs in Algeria, and so on. He learned that decisions can be tough and
what was a good approach for one situation may not be for another, that the world is
always changing and we need to adapt to new circumstances. We should open our eyes to what is in front
of us, be more compassionate towards others and show more empathy. Flexibility is a very important skill in every
field, including our relationships. Change is inevitable and, in order for a relationship
to grow, it is very important that both partners adapt to the changes. For example, if you don’t have a job because
you are looking for the perfect one and your partner has just lost theirs, then you might
try to lower your expectations and accept any job you can get in order to assure a comfortable
life for both of you. For the sake of the relationship, it is better
to be flexible and find ways to solve the problems even if it means compromising your
career goals. If you were stubborn in this situation, you
would not only put your finances at risk, but also your relationship. 7) Choose love
In our final quote from Albert Camus for this video, he says: “Nothing in life is worth
turning your back on, if you love it.” Albert Camus was a womanizer, having multiple
affairs with different women. He married his first wife to save her from
her drug addiction just to find out later that she was cheating on him with her doctor. In time, Camus developed a very libertarian
view over romantic love and he often seemed to choose love over commitment. However, he was at the same time a very tolerant
and gentle person, having regrets when his second wife went through a severe depressive
episode due to his cheating and,so, at the end of his life, he focused more on his wife
and children. He valued love above all and he considered
that love is our only duty in life. Often, love puts us in extreme situations
and we might have to choose between love and being moral like falling in love with somebody
married or when we are married and we fall for somebody else. According to Camus, when love clashes with
this sense of duty or commitment, then it is love we should listen to. It might also not be worthy to stay in a marriage
where there is no love. Love is an act of rebellion and it is the
force of life, giving us a shield of protection against being broken by the absurd. To apply this lesson in our life, we need
to live more in the present, to learn to express our love for other people more often, without
pondering too much about what the future will bring to those relationships. For example, if you have a high paid job and
you travel in a business trip to a distant country and you meet there somebody you fall
in love with, but you must come back to your home country due to your contract, then you
should take a leap of faith and find ways to remain there, even quitting your job. Nothing in life is worth turning your back
on, if you love it. If you enjoyed this video, please make sure
to check out our full Philosophies for Life playlist and for more videos to help you find
success and happiness using ancient philosophical wisdom, don’t forget to subscribe. Thanks so much for watching.
