Project 2

     Albert Camus was a French novelist, essayist, and playwright, best known for novels of absurd literature. He believed in the statement, “There is only one really serious philosophical problem,” Camus declares, “and that is suicide (Aronson, 2022). Determining whether life is worth living is to answer the fundamental question in philosophy, “All other questions follow from that” (pg. 1). He puts forth one of the twentieth century’s best-known existentialist questions, which launched The Myth of Sisyphus (Pg. 1): A story of Sisyphus endlessly pushing his rock up the mountain only to see it roll back down each time he gains the top (Pg. 1); what is the purpose of life? With his writings and statements, it can be believed that Albert Camus would agree that suicide is a social epidemic, even more so now that it usually involves the presence and participation of social media sites.

     At around the age of seventeen, Camus had been diagnosed with tuberculosis (“When Albert Camus was sick, his buddies set the gold standard for socially distant friendship”, 2020, Pg. 1) and had been living in isolation. During this time, he reflected on life, and a pronounced social pessimism characterized his work. It was devoted to the topic of suicide, murder, unrest, and terror (“Albert camus on the meaning of life: Faith, suicide, and absurdity”, 2023, Pg.1). In today’s society, we look at suicide as a type of taboo, something that we don’t and won’t talk about.  Camus states as much when writing: “In our well-policed society, we recognize that an illness is serious from the fact that we don’t dare                                speak of it directly. For a long time, in middle-class families, people said no more than that the                                    elder daughter had a “suspicious cough” or that the father had a “growth” because tuberculosis                                  and cancer were looked upon as somewhat shameful maladies.” (Lamb, M. 2021, Pg.1)

But, should we look at suicide this way? The more a person talks about a problem, the better the solutions that we may produce. Sometimes, all we want is to know that we are being heard. And, with the technologies of today, that help can be at the touch of a fingertip.

     It can be found that Camus repeatedly said that he did not consider himself a philosopher, but rather an absurdist (Tearle, Oliver 2021, Pg. 1). However, his works contested philosophy as a pessimistic doctrine of the absurdity of human existence and are understood as finite, limited by the framework of earthly survival ((Tearle, Oliver 2021, Pg. 1). This can be represented in his take on the writings of The Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus’ fate in the tale can be considered repetitive and mundane, much like the lives we live today: “Such is the life of modern man: condemned to perform the same futile daily rituals every day, working without fulfillment, with no point or purpose to much of what he does” (Tearle, Oliver 2021, Pg. 1). It begs to question, is the thought of never changing our day-to-day activities, never having any spontaneity or a reason to have fun, a type of thinking that ultimately leads one to ponder the act of suicide?

When the time comes to speak out about suicide, it is more likely to be thought of by older individuals and adults. We fail to think about what may be going through the minds of our young children in this day and age when a boy doesn’t know if he is a girl, or a child being brought up in non-traditional parenting households, to the bullying at school because a child doesn’t have the new “cool” clothes or shoes.  Even the fact that what one child may enjoy doing 

in his free time is scrutinized by classmates and made fun of. Thoughts of worth and affirmation can be hard to find. When things like this occur, we see that these children turn to social media and technology to find those feelings of being accepted. A whopping 41% of teens with the highest social media use would rate their overall mental health as poor or very poor, compared to those who do not participate in social media platforms (DeAngelis, Tori. 2024, Pg, 1).  As of 2021, there are around 500 million (Our World in Data, 2024, Pg 1.) children and teens between the ages of 5 and 14, making that roughly 1.2 billion young adolescent children who have thought about or did perform the act of suicide in the United States alone.

     We, as humans, have an innate desire to find meaning in things, and, when it doesn't exist, we typically attempt to create it. However, Camus does not see this meaninglessness as bad.  He explains that understanding life is absurd is the first step to being fully alive (Hedricks, Scotty, 2023, Pg.1). In the words of Camus, “You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life” (Archon, S. (2016, Pg.1). So, what does this truly mean? Go outside, enjoy the sunshine with your furry best friend, take the trip that you are always talking about, have lunch with the friends that you’ve been distant from, but, mostly, refuse to give into despair and embrace the meaninglessness of existence by choosing to carry on with what you enjoy doing despite the lack of meaning to your actions (Hendrick, Scotty, 2023, Pg.1).

     These are some of the reasons Camus would believe suicide is an epidemic. Suicide is not the answer, but rather an uncomplicated way out of life, one that we are not meant to figure out.