19. Albert Camus on The Absurdity of Life

In this episode we unpack Algerian Novelist Albert Camus' 1942 essay "The Myth of Sisyphus." This essay explores... -Why life is an absurdity -Why sitting with inconvenient truths make them easier to bare -How to find meaning in a meaningless world Links to Reading and Other Sources Mentioned The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus Hamlet by William Shakespeare  A Night of Serious Drinking by Rene Daumal Oedipus by Sophocles Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor E. Frankl The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings (film) *note* reading is not required to enjoy this episode! Host: Zach Stehura  UnpackingIdeas.com Guest: Arthur O'Dwyer Theme Music: Polyenso Timestamps 00:00:00 Introduction  00:02:52 Writing from a place of confusion and curiosity  00:08:15 The only Serious Philosophical Problem 00:08:55 The Nietzschian Criterion  00:11:32 Can we live with the awareness of the absurd without turning away? 00:13:00 Suicide as a social cause vs. existential cause  00:14:56 Is living worth the suffering? 00:14:44 The uncertainty of the afterlife 00:16:47 Camus two certainties  00:18:08 Nostalgia for Unity  00:20:40 Camus’s Critique of Science  00:23:11 Waking up to the Absurd   00:27:35 Definition of Absurdity 00:30:04 Philosophical Suicide  00:30:55 Critique of Kierkegaard  00:36:25 Critique of the Phenomenologists 00:43:21 Truths worth Dying For 00:47:05 The Greek Myth of Sisyphus  00:52:50 What Makes Sisyphus a Tragedy  00:54:44 Abandoning Hope 00:57:29 Consciousness as the cause of and cure to suffering  00:58:16 Finding Meaning in the struggle  01:03:42 We can only control how we respond  01:05:27 Crushing Truths Perish from Being Acknowledged   01:09:00 wrapping up/outro