How To Live Freely In This Meaningless World - Albert Camus (Philosophy Of Absurdism)

Albert Camus was a French-Algerian author  and philosopher of the 20th century and one of the most thought-provoking thinkers.  He mainly wrote novels, the most notable being: The Stranger, The Plague, The Myth of Sisyphus,  The Fall, and The Rebel. He even received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1957!

His  philosophy is considered as being part of “the philosophy of the absurd” or “absurdism”, which  states that human beings exist in a purposeless, chaotic universe, and which he  explored in many of his novels. The main theory of Camus is to embrace  the absurdity of life as a simple fact, without falling into despair. This ability  to embrace absurdity means to be free.

According to Camus, there are 2 types of  freedom: Common Freedom, defined as the ability to choose between different options -  for example, whether to take a glass of water from the table or not - and Absurd Freedom, the  ability to live a life without meaning. For Camus, Absurd Freedom is true freedom. In a world  without meaning, individuals can discover that they can do whatever they want, while still  taking full responsibility for their actions.

Without any legitimate pressure from  other people, society and so on, we can learn to only follow our inner motivations  and personal values. Reaffirming this power coming from such an inner freedom, we as  individuals thus create our own meaning of life. So to help you understand how to be more free, we bring you 7 life lessons from  the philosophy of Albert Camus: Believe in freedom Camus said: “Thinking of the future, establishing  aims for oneself, having preferences - all this presupposes a belief in freedom, even if one  occasionally ascertains that one doesn't feel it.

” For Camus, freedom is very much  linked to his concept of absurdity; the realization that life has no meaning  and it is pointless to search for one. Once someone learns how to face the absurd, they  become free from illusions and false beliefs. If we are not willing to recognize the  absurdity of this life, that the universe has no meaning other than the one we give to it,  we cannot be free as our mind will be closed, not able to open itself up to the true reality  of this life, and to new possibilities.

For example, imagine that you were a professional  sprinter, you had a serious accident and now you are in a wheelchair. You could believe that your  life no longer has any meaning now you can’t run, but the truth is it never had meaning beyond  the meaning you gave to it. So now that the old meaning is not relevant anymore, it just means you  are free to create a new meaning, perhaps taking up a wheelchair-friendly sport, writing about  your experiences, coaching the next generation, or anything else that provides you joy,  even if it’s outside the world of athletics.

Becoming more proactively engaged with your own  life, creating goals and making solid plans for the future creates meaning. But in order to  achieve this we need to believe in freedom. We should stop thinking of ourselves as victims,  that we are such and such because of genetics, our financial situation, the quality of our  education, the way our family raised us, the country we live in, or because of the  people who hurt us along the way, and so on.

Even if you cannot change much regarding  your circumstances through any of your actions, you can still find a sort of mental freedom,  in imagining a better future for yourself. For example, if you live in a poor neighborhood, it would not serve you well to focus on  blaming the government for not helping more, or that you were unlucky enough to be born  there. That is not to say that these things may not be true - of course you can - and should  - acknowledge these facts if that’s the case, but to really improve your mental state at  least, you should see yourself as a free person.

After seeing yourself as someone who  is free to make the most of their situation, you can then choose to act upon it, maybe you can  get involved in improving the living conditions of your neighborhood or create a support group  with others in your area in the same situation. It won’t always be possible to act in the  direction of your desires, but having the right mindset, seeing yourself as capable of  anything, can improve your happiness immensely. No matter how small the steps you take,  just perceiving yourself as a free person, believing in your own freedom, can really  help when facing the absurdity of life.

Fight for freedom According to Camus: “Freedom is not a  gift received from the State or leader, but a possession to be won every day by  the effort of each and the union of all. ” For Camus, freedom is not a privilege that you  receive from the government or other authority, it is a state of being, a right that you need to  fight for every day. It is not enough to believe you are free, to see yourself as a free person;  you need to be proactive and fight for freedom.

We need to learn to voice our opinions and  to help other people voice theirs. Nowadays, there are still a big number of countries  where expressing your honest opinion can put you in prison or even to death.  In these countries authoritarianism rules, and Camus considered that there is  nothing worse than authoritarianism.

During his life, after the Second World War,  Camus saw how communism was spreading across Eastern Europe, as a countermeasure to capitalism.  Communism, also called revolutionary socialism, was promising freedom for all and  attracted many French intellectuals, but Camus saw how faulty its method was,  that it was suppressing opposing views, offering nothing but empty promises  of freedom for all in the future. Camus believed the theory that “the ends justify  the means'' is extremely dangerous, because if true, then this legitimises murder or abusing  people on your way to achieving your goals.

For example, if we want to have a secure society,  to limit the freedom of speech is not a solution as this freedom must be a protected right for  any of us. Following this logic, we should not block anyone from expressing controversial  beliefs, even if we fear they might form potentially dangerous political coalitions in the  future. We need to protect freedom of thought, freedom of speech and by extension  freedom of the press by any means.

However, an unchecked freedom of the  press can be a double-edged sword. With the emergence of the internet the  world has become much more complex. The speed at which news is being created,  consumed and shared is orders of magnitude greater than compared to Camus’ times.

The result  is it often becomes difficult, if not impossible, to separate legitimate fact from biased opinion  and misinformation. Fact-checking and even a certain degree of censorship might be needed on  social platforms to help with this separation. Nevertheless, what we can take from Camus today is  that society needs a healthy press, which nowadays includes social media platforms unfearful of  telling the truth while displaying the views and opinions of people from all walks of life, yet  still protecting users from fake news and abuse.

A free and healthy press can help us defeat any  type of totalitarianism and help us maintain a free society. And without a free society,  nothing can guarantee the freedom of individuals. No matter our place in society, we can learn to  better voice our opinions and help other people voice theirs.

For example, if you are  a factory worker for a big corporation, you should try to make your opinions heard, no  matter if they are against the company’s policy. For example, if the wage you get is not  enough to cover your basic needs in life or if you are not allowed to take enough breaks  during the working day, you need to unite with other people in the same situation, form a union  and voice your complaints to the management of the company or even to mass media. No matter  the form in which authority presents itself, be it a government or a big corporation, we  need to fight for our rights and for the right to express our opinions and complaints.

A free  society cannot exist without the contribution of all of us, fighting for freedom and for  our human rights to voice our complaints. 03. Be creative Camus tells us: “Without freedom, no art; art  lives only on the restraints it imposes on itself, and dies of all others.

” For Camus, art was of immense value and he  believed that art should be completely free, creatively. Art cannot help people achieve  happiness if it is not absolutely free, allowing the individual to express their  unconstrained feelings and thoughts through it. A true work of art not only increases the freedom  of the one who creates it, but also increases the inner freedom of the ones who observe it, opening  up their minds and feelings.

Moreover, Camus considered that without freedom, art, one of the  major components of happiness for human beings, cannot exist, and that is why freedom  is so important in one’s life. Thus, to be more free, a good habit to adopt is to  be creators or consumers of more art. For example, you can pick up a paper and pencil or buy some  art supplies and start drawing something you see or imagine, or maybe express yourself through  music, whether that’s as involved as learning an instrument and joining a band, or simply  singing your heart out in the car on the way to work or in the shower.

Not for  you? Maybe you basically live online? If so, there’s so much you can do creatively with  digital technology today!

From photo-editing to music production, making videos and animations  to making video games and designing 3D models. If none of that resonates, you could just start  decorating your home in a way that gives you an increased sense of happiness. But as we said  before, you don’t have to be the creator of art to benefit from it - consuming the  art of others is just as important, whether for you that means going to galleries and  exhibitions, gigs, theaters and yes, even watching TV & movies, practicing or consuming art can open  you up, making you feel more creative and free.

04. Act rebellious In the words of Camus: “The only  way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your  very existence is an act of rebellion. ” In the book “The Myth of Sisyphus”, Camus  described the daily routines of many people in the modern day; from waking up and going to work  to spending four hours in the office or factory, then having lunch, another four hours of  work, then coming home, having dinner, then sleep.

Many people follow such  routines without even questioning them. However, once in a while, they wake up and  feel a sense of isolation from other people, of disconnection, they realize  that they are wasting their life and the only thing waiting for them at the end  is death. At such moments, they can experience strong feelings of anxiety.

Those are the moments  when they see the absurdity of life, and the best way to face the absurdity of life is to revolt  against it, to try to improve the human condition. According to Camus, we must fight  against the absurdity of life, against unfairness and against this apparent  lack of meaning by creating our own meaning of life. Only in this way can we achieve happiness  and avoid committing suicide, which, according to Camus, is the biggest philosophical problem. 

In the absence of a given meaning of our life, we should strive to find happiness in our own  way, to learn to live life with more passion. Passion is the way in which we can  rebel against the rigidity of our lives. To live life with passion meant for  Camus to enjoy sports, going on dates, writing literature and any other simple pleasures  outside of his work.

For other people it can mean traveling during the holidays, hiking during  the weekends, starting a hobby in the evening, or listening to a favorite podcast on the way to  work. However, besides these activities which are small acts of rebellion against the rigidity of  life, there are more effective ways to become freer and rebel in a more impactful way. This can  be starting a new career or business in which we do more of what we really enjoy doing and for  which we have more freedom in deciding how much, where and when to work.

The more we rebel  against the conventional ways of working - or living in general - the less rigid our life  will be and the more freedom we will have. 05. Be free but lawful Camus wrote: “Absolute freedom mocks at  justice.

Absolute justice denies freedom. ” For Camus, freedom is a necessary condition for  individuals to create a meaning for their lives. However, Camus was not an anarchist, someone who  is for a society without a governing body, without authorities, or a libertarian, someone who is for  a minimal state that intervenes very little in the free market and in the private lives of citizens. 

For individuals to be free, the society in which the individuals live must be free as well, and  to assure a free society, we need justice to create a fair environment in which everybody has  the opportunity to be equally free and to find life’s meaning by themselves. Thus, there is  a fine line between freedom and justice and we need to find an equilibrium point so that we don’t  have too much of one at the expense of the other. In his essay “Reflections on the Guillotine”,  Camus expressed his view on the death penalty.

He was very much against the idea of the  state having the right over the life and death of an individual, so he fought for  the abolishment of the death penalty. Camus recognized the death  penalty as a form of revenge and, he believed that instead of preventing more  violence, the death penalty creates more violence. At the opposite extreme, it can be the case that  when people have too much un-checked freedom, some of them can gather to form political  coalitions based on removing that freedom, which can become so strong that  it changes the law of the country, resulting in a less free, potentially  even non-democratic society.

Thus, we need to make sure that the laws which  assure a fair democratic society are never canceled. One example is preserving the right  for everyone to vote in leadership elections. At a smaller community level we should  fight for preserving the rule of law, of equal rights for everyone, but we also need to  let individuals express themselves.

For example, if you are a teacher, you should make the students  listen to you, follow the school rules and behave in a civilized manner, but you should also give  them the opportunity to voice their opinions, to express their personality as long as they do  not disturb the school environment in doing so. Similarly, we as contributors to  our society should always strive to maintain equilibrium between freedom and justice. 06.

Acknowledge the negative sides of your freedom To quote Camus: “We are always free  at the expense of someone else. It is a bother, but it is normal. ” Camus very much glorified the concept of freedom,  however he could see its negative sides as well.

He considered that the freedom of one individual  might clash with the freedom of other individuals. There will always be conflicting interests. That  is why, as society advances in becoming more liberal, the more rules we need to draw the line  between the freedoms of different individuals.

Camus was not for an absolute freedom, but  for a freedom that is balanced with a spirit of justice between different people. For Camus,  freedom is not going for what we want without considering others, it is going for what we want  while respecting the freedom of other people. Moreover, he could see that someone  who really cares about others, who is more empathetic, does not need societal  rules to keep his or her integrity intact.

But, as not everybody is an empath and because  it is often far more complicated than how a single action affects a single person, it  is necessary to have clear rules of conduct, to assure a balance between the freedom  of different individuals. Nonetheless, it is still recommended to increase awareness  and empathy between people as much as possible, to balance different interests and views before  relying on the rule of law to provide guidance. It is said that none of us should have the freedom  to be unequal, meaning that we should not demand a freedom that makes us superior to others.

For  example, you do have the freedom to do what you want in your house, like throwing a big party and  setting the music volume to maximum. But, in this way, you will disturb your neighbors who also have  the right to enjoy whatever level of noise they want to experience in their house. Although you  might not be doing anything technically illegal, you should still be sensitive to others, trying to  take into account the people around you.

Ofcourse, you can still play the music, but maybe you should  try to lower the volume during sleeping hours. Freedom has negative sides and that is why  you should not abuse your personal freedom. Another example would be to imagine that you  were born in a certain culture or religion which demands you follow a strict dress code, but at  your workplace you are required to wear a uniform.

Thus, your freedom to wear what you wish  clashes with the rules of your workplace. The best way to solve this conflict is if both  parties make some concessions. Perhaps you adopt the uniform, but only if the company allows you to  add an accessory which represents your identity.

However, if the company demands you respect  their dress code in favor of the dress code of your religious beliefs, you will inevitably  grow resentment and may even leave that company. On the other extreme, if the company  gives absolute freedom to everyone to wear whatever they like, the brand could suffer,  affecting the overall success of the company. In every life situation, we should strive  to reach a balance between our personal interests and the interests of others  and the community we are part of.

We do not live in isolation and the freedom of  everyone around us is as important as our own. 07. Use your freedom to improve yourself In our final quote from  Albert Camus for this video, he says: “Freedom is nothing  but a chance to be better.

” What Camus understood by freedom was mainly Absurd  Freedom, the kind of freedom born from facing the absurdity of life. Camus described three ways  through which one can solve the conflict between life’s lack of meaning and his or her desire to  find one: The first is physical suicide - you kill yourself because you conclude that your life is  worthless, but there is no real logic in killing yourself if the universe itself is meaningless.  The second is philosophical suicide - through religion or other forms of faith, you abandon  reason and this prevents you from experiencing life in an authentic way.

Finally, one can simply  accept the absurdity of life and deal with it. By learning how to deal with this conflict, you  will experience Absurd Freedom. Once you discover that the universe has no meaning, you will become  free to give it any meaning you want.

You are free to set any goal you feel you can accomplish. You  can start to free yourself from things or people who don’t really have a place in your life.  You gain more control - you set new rules.

You rethink all the benefits you previously  had - you question if they are useful or not. You question your relationships and life  plans, and if you don’t find them useful in reaching your goals and dreams, you  are free to drop them and make new ones. For example, imagine you’re going through a  difficult period of your life, you lose your job and find yourself living at your friend’s house. 

Seeing how difficult and unfair this life can be, you start to question what the meaning of all of  these difficulties is. Why do some people have it all and some nothing? You might then become aware  of how meaningless everything is, and that all that matters is your mindset.

That is to say the  meaning you create for yourself. Looking inside yourself you can find a new type of freedom  in which lies the power to change your life. Going back to our example, you can consider  this period of your life as a test to prove you are capable of surviving, of starting  life over again on a new path.

See it as an opportunity to develop new skills and that you  will come up stronger than ever before after this. You can convince yourself that everything will  get better, by adjusting the way you see the situation, by giving it a new meaning. You can  even consider yourself luckier than others because you had this opportunity to face such a challenge  and learn and grow from it - and they didn’t.

Such freedom to create personal meanings  can lead to personal growth - to transform yourself into the person you need to become  to overcome those challenges and, ultimately, into the person you wish to become. These changes  do not happen overnight - they come step by step, and this is fine. Freedom is - and will always  be - a journey of continuous self-improvement.

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