How should one confront the absurdity of life? 

The obvious answer for this question follows, I’m not sure. I’m not sure how one should confront the absurdity of life, but this doesn’t exempt me from ushering my two cents into the age-old dilemma. Perhaps my perspective as an adolescent provides insight towards the reader’s own comprehension, but more significantly I hope it grants the reader understanding into how I interact with the world. 

At 19 I began reading some of Albert Camus’ literature, which introduced me to absurdism and all the presumptions that follow. I realized that confronting an absurd existence can be crippling or energizing depending on the daily events one endures. In India I’ve been fortunate to dine at five star restaurants, and on the way home seen people scavenging through dumpsters. Heading to my plush internship I’ve witnessed gasoline siphoned from tanker trucks stopped in traffic. I’ve seen homeless persons combing their hair and brushing their teeth streetside. I’ve witnessed my boss devote his entire existence to decreasing the inequality of our species for hopes of a sustainable future. And all of the inexplicable suffering and joy I’ve witnessed or experienced is inconsequential, which is simultaneously a hypnotizing and liberating realization. 

I’m sure Albert Camus would tell me that the absurd hero is undeterred regardless of their circumstances, but his use of the word hero demonstrates it’s impracticality to emulate consistently and is therefore an ineffective serum. Also Sisyphus, Camus’ example of an absurd hero, has been dictated to push his boulder, so he doesn’t suffer from the “choice overload” condition that modern society has imposed upon us. By choosing to live each day we continue pushing our own boulder, symbolistically enduring our fruitless existence. But we’re faced with insoluble questions asking which boulder we should push and at what pace, with knowledge that invariably each boulder will tumble back down. 

My beginning, “I’m not sure,” returns at this moment. I’m not sure how I should confront my existence now that I’m aware of its underlying absurdity. It would be foolish of me to believe at 20, I have figured out an ideal way of existing, or if there even is an ideal way of existing. Here my adolescence provides a near-empty ideological canvas which I have just recently begun to paint. I’ll embrace my uncertainty of how I should go about existing because this allows me to fill my canvas without claiming certitude about anything. I also believe existing solely in the present, and dismissing thoughts of one’s past or future can encourage embracing this uncertainty and confusion without fear or judgment. I’m far from reaching this ideal and I’m genuinely unsure if it’s something I even want. 

Exactly as I began this exercise, I am without an answer and still in a state of confusion. But when my boulder becomes especially difficult to push, I can find solace in the belief that me simply asking this question might be as important as any answer itself.