When Albert Camus suggested that suicide was the only serious philosophical question, he was asking the same thing. Then myself.Īs I grew older, this line of thinking led me to a quintessential philosophical question: if I’m going to die, what’s the point of all this? If I’m destined for the incinerator, why bust my arse earning money that I don’t get to keep? Or spend years poring over books for knowledge that will go up in smoke? Then I realised that other animals cease to exist. As Littlefoot’s brontosaurus mother lays dying after a battle with the formidable Sharptooth, and it becomes clear that she can no longer be with him, the realisation hit me: dinosaurs aren’t permanent. I first learned about death from The Land Before Time, a classic kids movie from the 80s about five plucky young dinosaurs trying to survive. Is it worth struggling through a life that ends in annihilation? ![]() The universe doesn’t care-things must change. You can fall on your knees, clasp your hands together and beg for salvation, but it won’t make any difference. Atoms just want to flit around, and the fact that you need them to stay alive is inconsequential. They want to leave and join something else-a blade of grass, a plastic coke bottle, an aardvark. The atoms that make up your body and consciousness won’t stick around for long. It lives by a basic, merciless rule: things must change. The universe doesn’t give a shit about you. If we're to survive the absence of universal meaning, we must do the same. Albert Camus faced the absurdity of an irrational world by forging his own meaning in his personal passions.
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