This week we read the chapter titled “The Absurd Man”.
In this section, Camus provides various colorful sketches of absurd lives. The first is that of the infamous Don Juan, whereas the second two are more generic “types” of lives — that of the actor and the conquerer/adventurer.
He begins the chapter answering his own question:
“What, in fact, is the absurd man? He who, without negating it, does nothing for the eternal. Not that nostalgia is foreign to him. But he prefers his courage and his reasoning. The first teaches him to live without appeal and to get along with what he has, the second informs him of his limits. Assured of his temporally limited freedom, of his revolt devoid of future, and of his mortal consciousness, he lives out his adventure within the span of his lifetime”
The Myth of Sisyphus, 66
This general answer is meant to prepare the ground for a series of vivid sketches of what this might look like if it were embodied in various types of people. One of the aims of doing …
