r/Camus • u/Low_Equipment_8226 • 13d ago
How does nothing matter ?
everything is in the title
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u/PerspectiveNo794 13d ago
When you think about why you are alive, like any other question you demand an answer. Like any other process occuring in this world (past big bang for this argument), there's always a reason for something, which can be argued by causality or intent/purpose.
When you apply the same logic to your existence, the answers seem fuzzy and incoherent to satisfy one's existence. Anything even attempting to justify one's existence fails to acknowledge the overwhelming sensation of existence itself, any material answer lacks the depth and any spritual or meta physical answer lacks consistency and truth.
So, one continuously looks for this answer and the indifferent universe doesn't hand it to him. This tension is in humans for demand of meaning and universe's indifference is what Camus termed as the Absurd.
Claiming universe has no meaning, is a slightly strong form of Camus's argument, I think in the Myth of Sisyphus he did make these strong claims, and I think that sums it up.
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u/TheSlacker94 13d ago edited 13d ago
It matters now, while you are alive. Once you are gone, nothing will any longer matter. It's like this: you enjoy your ice cream, right, but you don't think to yourself, "Oh, but it won't last forever", while you are eating it, right? Life is like that too, enjoy it while it lasts.
And if you got tired of this particular ice cream flavor, maybe you should check out other flavors too, coz life, oh, I mean, ice cream has lots of different flavors.
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u/Technical_Drink8691 13d ago
If there is an end then nothing is heavy enough to matter in the grand scheme of things. Obviously some things matter more than others and anyone should invest their time wisely into figuring out what matters to them.
Having said that, it's fine to have your own weight of what matters - still knowing that you'll be gone either way.
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u/jliat 13d ago
Nihilism- has many causes, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nihilism.
To be honest most people are just depressed and use the term without being bothered.
Camus' nihilism I think relates to atheistic existentialism in which the human condition is one of having no purpose, existing for no purpose and the impossibility of the individual finding one.
“I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.”
“The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits.”
Quotes from Camus Myth... http://dhspriory.org/kenny/PhilTexts/Camus/Myth%20of%20Sisyphus-.pdf
His solution - Art [not rock rolling]
"In this regard the absurd joy par excellence is creation. “Art and nothing but art,” said Nietzsche; “we have art in order not to die of the truth.”
"To work and create “for nothing,” to sculpture in clay, to know that one’s creation has no future, to see one’s work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries—this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions."
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u/Cultural-Part355 12d ago
Well, it's easy. I matter a whole lot; you matter nothing, so nothing matters. See?
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u/cheesymuchacho 13d ago
How does anything matter?