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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
challenging
hopeful
informative
slow-paced
a simply life-changing book. consciousness itself is the only gift.
my first thoughts are, i must get my own copy of this because it is something i will read many times again before i die. it is the kind of thing that reveals its wisdom to you over and over again. i had watched many youtube videos and listened to podcasts on camus and the concept of the absurd, but i cannot emphasise enough how important it is to sit down with a book and read it. how much it helps you to commit its lessons to memory.
i picked this book up because i was going through a difficult time in my life. i drove myself down to the local library and tried not to look like a wanker when i asked the librarian if it had arrived. i thought that i might be able to find some solace, some way forward, in camus. i quickly learned that there would be no solace found in between its cover. camus offered something different, something that would fundamentally change the way i see the world and my life.
at some point in the last two years, i had tipped over the edge of that 'lucidity' which camus describes. i was grappling with, at every minute of my day, the meaninglessness of my life and the constant anxieties that came with that, my lack of acceptance. everything i did felt pointless, i was in a permanent state of worry (mostly about the future), and my mind was being torn towards a tragic nostalgia, a mourning of a recently lost childhood and a longing for the lost ease in which i used to slip into my many adolescent fantasies. this awareness was a staple in my life, but it was unsustainable. i felt as though i had made the inevitable discovery of a conscious being in this life, but had no idea what to DO with it yet. this is the precise premise upon which camus begins his essay. this is his starting point.
for contrasts sake, i have now finished school and am hung in the lurch between my life before and the new one to come. i realise now the futility of my high school appearances, my perception of myself and my place in the world (finding understanding of the buddhist concept of 'non-self' too). i have realised how my absorption in myself has cut me off from others and from experience. in a months time i will go off to university where i will be lucky to know another person, where the way i have lived before will mean nothing to anyone else, and in fact, will likely be flipped on its head entirely. oh god how i fear it. oh god how i crave it!
in order to afford this anticipated uni experience, i have picked up two jobs this holiday period, this final summer of my youth. they are simple, hospitality jobs. the tourists which flock my town in the summer want something, and i get it for them. I am simply a body, condemned to eternal work like sisyphus rolling that boulder up a hill, except my boulder is the round scoops of gelato i form, or the tray of pizza dough upon which i toil. I find joy in the plain repetition of the task i have been assigned. i find also, a certain comedy in the concentration and application that i commit to tasks that even 6 months ago i may have felt i was above doing somehow. now, when i am asked to get down and scrub the floor on my hands and knees, i do so with pace, enthusiasm and sometimes even an absurd smile. i think it is good for the soul. i am working long hours, often late at night. but i enjoy working. i used to hate it. now when i walk into either of the shops where i am employed, i am simply a worker, nothing more. none of the multitude of labels and roles which i had let define so much of my life before. i realise that when i go off to uni i will be similarly unlabelled, at least to those not too quick to judge. i see great opportunity in this. i find a certain relief in it.
perhaps the most puzzling of camus suggestions in these essays, is his insistence on QUANTITY of life over quality. it seems counterintuitive. we always say, i want to live a great life, i want to be the best version of myself. when i ponder how to embody this notion of QUANTITY i think it could be pretty well surmised in me working a nearly 10 hour day across two jobs on a beautiful day in my final summer at home.
i am also fascinated by camus 'suggestions' of the Absurd Man, the archetypes he provides which exemplify living the life of an absurdist, riding that line between awareness of the meaninglessness of life and finding meaning oneself regardless, as well as consistent fidelity to awareness of the two. the lover, the actor, the conquerer. the artist. i guess i am most like the conquerer, in my own ways. this year i might try my hand at being the lover. ideally, i will be something else all together. these archetypes do come across as vague and somewhat inapplicable to a 21st century lifestyle. perhaps through camus novels, i will come closer to understanding what it means to be living the absurd life. i think the key concept here, which pertains to all of camus examples is ACTION. understanding that you are the decisive factor. it is how we increase the QUANTITY of our experience in this life (and not in the next one). the action is in choosing to have hope. choosing to do something we love despite its meaninglessness and ultimate futility. this is our mortal revolt! the time will pass regardless.
It reminds me of perhaps my favourite movie scene of all time, or rather my favourite dialogue, from the movie 'first reformed' which i had to rewatch last night, inspired: “Courage is the solution to despair, reason provides no answers. I can't know what the future will bring; we have to choose despite uncertainty. Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind, simultaneously, Hope and despair. A life without despair is a life without hope. Holding these two ideas in our head is life itself." reading that alone, one would assume that this movie is absurdist in nature. perhaps it is. it is essentially what camus proposes! is this movie religious? because this passage negates 'the leap', acknowledging the contradiction and hypocrisy of faith itself. the afterword by james wood i thought was simply fantastic. he said something similar...
this book made me want to create. it made me want to write. it is, i believe, one of the ways i will choose to live in the absurd. to throw my silly little creations out into the void. all of the segments about artists and artistry were great and i would love to revisit these often. the 'place' essays at the end...i didnt even know one could write like that, combine such things, bring out such emotions and images in me for places i have never been! i must go to these places, algiers, oran and others after reading these pieces. his metaphysical way of writing about the physical world and restorative possibilities of nature remind me of mary shelley...or yuiko mishima. Summer in Algiers was particularly memorable. they are testaments to place and time, they make me want to honour the place where i grew up and which i find so much beauty and solace in, especially over the summer. they also guide one how to see the world, how an absurdist might find meaning in the simple beauty of the everyday, of nature (and now i want to read proust). this physicality is all we have, "what i touch, what resists me, that is what i understand". knowing that i share these feelings with camus makes me feel like i am on the right path. now, i must start creating.
the first 40 pages of this book was by far the most difficult thing i have ever read. perhaps it was a little to heavy for my first foray into 'philosophy' (i understand there are some who dont consider the myth of sisyphus as a true philosophy book therefore dont consider camus to be a philosopher). i thought about giving up on multiple occasions. i guess you could say i was going to commit 'philosophical suicide'. but i persisted, and i am so glad that i did. i want to read so much more stuff now, camus other works, some of the authors mentioned in here, even the ones camus disagreed with. so yes, random lady from the library, you can have your book back, you dont need to charge me for not returning it.
my first thoughts are, i must get my own copy of this because it is something i will read many times again before i die. it is the kind of thing that reveals its wisdom to you over and over again. i had watched many youtube videos and listened to podcasts on camus and the concept of the absurd, but i cannot emphasise enough how important it is to sit down with a book and read it. how much it helps you to commit its lessons to memory.
i picked this book up because i was going through a difficult time in my life. i drove myself down to the local library and tried not to look like a wanker when i asked the librarian if it had arrived. i thought that i might be able to find some solace, some way forward, in camus. i quickly learned that there would be no solace found in between its cover. camus offered something different, something that would fundamentally change the way i see the world and my life.
at some point in the last two years, i had tipped over the edge of that 'lucidity' which camus describes. i was grappling with, at every minute of my day, the meaninglessness of my life and the constant anxieties that came with that, my lack of acceptance. everything i did felt pointless, i was in a permanent state of worry (mostly about the future), and my mind was being torn towards a tragic nostalgia, a mourning of a recently lost childhood and a longing for the lost ease in which i used to slip into my many adolescent fantasies. this awareness was a staple in my life, but it was unsustainable. i felt as though i had made the inevitable discovery of a conscious being in this life, but had no idea what to DO with it yet. this is the precise premise upon which camus begins his essay. this is his starting point.
for contrasts sake, i have now finished school and am hung in the lurch between my life before and the new one to come. i realise now the futility of my high school appearances, my perception of myself and my place in the world (finding understanding of the buddhist concept of 'non-self' too). i have realised how my absorption in myself has cut me off from others and from experience. in a months time i will go off to university where i will be lucky to know another person, where the way i have lived before will mean nothing to anyone else, and in fact, will likely be flipped on its head entirely. oh god how i fear it. oh god how i crave it!
in order to afford this anticipated uni experience, i have picked up two jobs this holiday period, this final summer of my youth. they are simple, hospitality jobs. the tourists which flock my town in the summer want something, and i get it for them. I am simply a body, condemned to eternal work like sisyphus rolling that boulder up a hill, except my boulder is the round scoops of gelato i form, or the tray of pizza dough upon which i toil. I find joy in the plain repetition of the task i have been assigned. i find also, a certain comedy in the concentration and application that i commit to tasks that even 6 months ago i may have felt i was above doing somehow. now, when i am asked to get down and scrub the floor on my hands and knees, i do so with pace, enthusiasm and sometimes even an absurd smile. i think it is good for the soul. i am working long hours, often late at night. but i enjoy working. i used to hate it. now when i walk into either of the shops where i am employed, i am simply a worker, nothing more. none of the multitude of labels and roles which i had let define so much of my life before. i realise that when i go off to uni i will be similarly unlabelled, at least to those not too quick to judge. i see great opportunity in this. i find a certain relief in it.
perhaps the most puzzling of camus suggestions in these essays, is his insistence on QUANTITY of life over quality. it seems counterintuitive. we always say, i want to live a great life, i want to be the best version of myself. when i ponder how to embody this notion of QUANTITY i think it could be pretty well surmised in me working a nearly 10 hour day across two jobs on a beautiful day in my final summer at home.
i am also fascinated by camus 'suggestions' of the Absurd Man, the archetypes he provides which exemplify living the life of an absurdist, riding that line between awareness of the meaninglessness of life and finding meaning oneself regardless, as well as consistent fidelity to awareness of the two. the lover, the actor, the conquerer. the artist. i guess i am most like the conquerer, in my own ways. this year i might try my hand at being the lover. ideally, i will be something else all together. these archetypes do come across as vague and somewhat inapplicable to a 21st century lifestyle. perhaps through camus novels, i will come closer to understanding what it means to be living the absurd life. i think the key concept here, which pertains to all of camus examples is ACTION. understanding that you are the decisive factor. it is how we increase the QUANTITY of our experience in this life (and not in the next one). the action is in choosing to have hope. choosing to do something we love despite its meaninglessness and ultimate futility. this is our mortal revolt! the time will pass regardless.
It reminds me of perhaps my favourite movie scene of all time, or rather my favourite dialogue, from the movie 'first reformed' which i had to rewatch last night, inspired: “Courage is the solution to despair, reason provides no answers. I can't know what the future will bring; we have to choose despite uncertainty. Wisdom is holding two contradictory truths in our mind, simultaneously, Hope and despair. A life without despair is a life without hope. Holding these two ideas in our head is life itself." reading that alone, one would assume that this movie is absurdist in nature. perhaps it is. it is essentially what camus proposes! is this movie religious? because this passage negates 'the leap', acknowledging the contradiction and hypocrisy of faith itself. the afterword by james wood i thought was simply fantastic. he said something similar...
this book made me want to create. it made me want to write. it is, i believe, one of the ways i will choose to live in the absurd. to throw my silly little creations out into the void. all of the segments about artists and artistry were great and i would love to revisit these often. the 'place' essays at the end...i didnt even know one could write like that, combine such things, bring out such emotions and images in me for places i have never been! i must go to these places, algiers, oran and others after reading these pieces. his metaphysical way of writing about the physical world and restorative possibilities of nature remind me of mary shelley...or yuiko mishima. Summer in Algiers was particularly memorable. they are testaments to place and time, they make me want to honour the place where i grew up and which i find so much beauty and solace in, especially over the summer. they also guide one how to see the world, how an absurdist might find meaning in the simple beauty of the everyday, of nature (and now i want to read proust). this physicality is all we have, "what i touch, what resists me, that is what i understand". knowing that i share these feelings with camus makes me feel like i am on the right path. now, i must start creating.
the first 40 pages of this book was by far the most difficult thing i have ever read. perhaps it was a little to heavy for my first foray into 'philosophy' (i understand there are some who dont consider the myth of sisyphus as a true philosophy book therefore dont consider camus to be a philosopher). i thought about giving up on multiple occasions. i guess you could say i was going to commit 'philosophical suicide'. but i persisted, and i am so glad that i did. i want to read so much more stuff now, camus other works, some of the authors mentioned in here, even the ones camus disagreed with. so yes, random lady from the library, you can have your book back, you dont need to charge me for not returning it.
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
dark
informative
reflective
Realmente Camus hubiese sido una persona (que como yo) estaría living con el Spot de Rosalia en Instagram de “Hazlo. Sin miedo, como puedas, con hambre, con gracia, con amor, riendo, llorando, en paz o peleándote... pero hazlo”.
(El q publicó en tiktok el vídeo del mito de Sísifo con el dinosaurio dando vueltas alrededor de una botella que sepa que muchas gracias)
(El q publicó en tiktok el vídeo del mito de Sísifo con el dinosaurio dando vueltas alrededor de una botella que sepa que muchas gracias)
informative
reflective
slow-paced
Has a special place in my heart and on my shelf, it is very interesting.
Was too depressing back then. Will pick up some other time I think.