Three Responses to Absurdity

Camus mapped out three possible responses to a meaningless universe. Suicide — escape the problem by ending it. Camus rejected this. Philosophical suicide — invent a comforting meaning through religion or ideology. Camus rejected this too, calling it intellectual dishonesty.

The third option is revolt. Keep living. Refuse false comfort. Stare directly at the absurd and choose to be fully alive anyway. For Camus, revolt meant embracing experience intensely — creating art, loving passionately, engaging with the world — not despite meaninglessness but because of it.