Albert Camus
Albert Camus was born on November 7, 1913, a writer and philosopher who dealt with the philosophy of the absurd in his works.
Absurdity is the essential discrepancy between man's need and search for meaning and on the other side of it - that the universe has no universal meaning. When confronted with the world around him, man's spirit collides with the indifference of the world. The universe is without god and without meaning, but more than that - it is indifferent to the human individual.
ABSURD IS A CLAIM FOR MEANING. He advocated the position that an individual should accept the absurdity of existence and SEARCH FOR OWN MEANING.
Camus's philosophical thought provides theoretical support for certain interventions in psychotherapy. If we were to imagine what is the biggest opposite of the idea of absurdity, it would probably be the attitude: "If I do my best and do things right, I will get what I want." This approach can sometimes occur when people want to preserve an emotional connection, job, lifestyle that offers certain comfort, social environment, etc.
We may not want to hear it, but: there is no kind of necessary causality, certainty and guarantee that if we do everything in our power, the result must be what we want. A small but essential difference says: there is a percentage of chance and probability that it will be so.
That very moment when an individual hopes for a fulfilled wish and feels uncertainty - is the moment when we will be reminded of the ABSURDNESS of the world in which we live.
When we have this possibility in mind, the disappointment that can occur will be painful, various unpleasant emotions will appear, but precisely because the possibility that the desire can be thwarted at the level of external factors is conscious and minimal, that disappointment does not destroy the entire image of oneself, others and the world. In this way, the idea of absurdity and its acceptance is a psychologically protective factor for the individual.
In 1957, Camus was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature
Titian (1548). Sisyphus
If these days you are looking for a book in which you will get a one-time dose of infusion of "just be positive" and "you need to wish hard and it will come true", then Camus's "The Myth of Sisyphus" is everything you don't want. And it's actually what you need.
Camus takes ancient myth as a reference and presents the idea of Sisyphus as an absurd junkie.
"There is no sun without a shadow, it is necessary to know the night. The absurd man says "yes" and his effort will be constant. If there is a personal destiny, there is no more general destiny, or at least there is only one which he considers fatal and contemptible. As for the rest, he knows that he is the master of his days. In that subtle moment, in which man turns again to his life, Sisyphus, returning to his stone, observes the sequence of those disconnected movements that become his destiny, which he created, united under the gaze of his memory and soon sealed with his death. In this way, convinced of the human origin of all that is human, the blind man who wants to see and who knows that the night has no end, is always on the move. The stone is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! We carry our burden over and over again. But Sisyphus also teaches us a higher fidelity, which denies the gods and raises stones. And he thinks that everything is good. From now on, this world without a master does not seem to him to be neither servile nor worthless. Each grain of this stone, each crystal reflection of this mountain full of night, forms a world unto itself. The struggle to reach the top alone is enough to fill the human heart. We should imagine Sisyphus as happy.”
Albert Camus, "The Myth of Sisyphus"