Don’t lose yourself. Whether it’s in your personal relationships that matter to you or whatever career you’re passionate about, investing quality time into meaningful things is unwise. Falling in love? Pointless. Having hope things will eventually work out? Also pointless. According to Camus, you can engage in relationships and be passionate for them, but you will have to come back to the conclusion that these relationships are meaningless. This applies if you are aware of the absurd; this divorce between the desire for meaning and the lack of meaning the world provides us. Moreover, Camus gives three examples of the absurd man: the lover, the actor, and the conqueror. All three characters have a common understanding of living in the moment. They coexist with the absurd and live passionately in different ways. The quantity of their experiences is more important than the quality of them.
Camus’s first example of the lover is unrealistic but follows the life of a “wise” absurd man. The lover passionately seduces many women with the understanding that these relationships essentially are meaningless, only seducing these women to have individual quantitative experiences. He engages in these relationships quantitatively since having deeper feelings for any specific woman only strengthens the absurd. Falling in love with one woman creates a feeling of hope that is unrealistic in a world that cannot provide meaning. Camus emphasizes this lack of hope the lover has that makes him “wise”.
This example is not meant to be taken literally but more as an idealistic perspective of what it means to preserve the absurd. For example, many of us, including myself, prioritize meaningful relationships in our lives. I also have had moments where I have questioned my own mortality in CMC’s computer lab, which would constitute being aware of the absurd.
It’s difficult to process Camus’s argument that we cannot lose ourselves in the moment. I’ve had moments where I think to myself “I never want to leave this place in time” knowing that it will eventually end. However, I feel that these moments are qualitative. I have always been someone who believes that the quality of experiences is more important than quantity. Even though Camus states that these moments are not collective, it feels like the past is such a significant part of our lives. We hold onto our rose and thorns of the weeks that go by and cling onto specific meaningful moments, constantly replaying them in our heads. Why do we let ourselves become so consumed by certain moments when we know these moments in time do not truly matter?
