Camus Again

Back in the 50s and 60s, young people were reading Albert Camus with great interest and some puzzlement, because most of us had little background in philosophical questions. I'm a little surprised 60 years later suddenly to be seeing references to Camus and to the myth of Sisyphus.  Sisyphus pushing a rock up a hill was Camus' central example of how life consisted of work that was pointless and difficult yet good enough.

In brief, Camus was an active participant in the underground resistance to the Nazis in France. He won a Nobel prize for his writings. He said repeatedly that he was not an existentialist. He owed a lot to Nietzsche. He was one of the few leftists in France to denounce Stalin's brutality. 

Now an interest in Camus is back. He started from a belief that everyone (deep inside) sees no evidence that the universe has meaning. Apparently it just exists, as does our small planet. Camus's philosophy is an examination of how people cope with nihilism. 

The most common way of coping is to invent a meaning for life. Perhaps you commit to Leninism or Zeus or to composing operas--that is the leap of faith. Camus regarded the leap as self-deception, as philosophical suicide. His solution was not to deny meaninglessness but to try to live the fullest life possible, to maximize your experiences, which proved hard on some of the people he loved. What is the fullest life? Is that goal a self-deception?