Jean Paul Sartre and his contemporary Albert Camus reflected on what it means to be alive – to exist – to be happy or find contentment with one’s situation in a world otherwise inexplicable in human terms. What does it mean to exist? How must one exist for life to have some significance? Does it matter at all? If it does matter, then does existence come with some predetermined ‘meaning’ that we are incontrovertibly bound to, or must man, now that he is alive, decide his own meaning? The ‘must’ bit brings in some uneasiness. To decide for oneself means that the responsibility for outcomes will rest with man himself and no one else, leaving aside that unforeseeable thing called ‘chance’. God has been absolved of the responsibility to dictate our purpose. We have to decide this for ourselves. This is a scary idea for many. Isn’t it easier if we hand over this responsibility to God? This is a foundational argument that plays out in many of our narratives in the great big storybook we are discussing. What does it mean to determine one’s own singular essence and own our morality? Isn’t that real freedom?
A few hundred years before Camus and Sartre, the Prussian philosopher Emmanuel Kant thought a lot about free will, how it could work, and what it means for all of us co-inhabiting this planet and measuring each of our free will with that of each other. How does this work, and what are the implications for those whose wills are stronger or weaker, or that whimsical ‘chance’ element that can intrude like the hand of God and put a spanner in the course of our free will? Is it all predestined, or is there self-determination? Hence, does essence precede man’s existence, or is man condemned to determine his essence? Sartre argues for man to determine his own raison d’être. What do you think?
Camus opens another sublime window when he submits a premise that man’s encounter with the world around him gives rise to an absurd situation. How does one make sense of a world that has no moral or immoral arrangement in its nature? At least, not as man understands morality. Hence, how does man come to terms with this absurd encounter that will continue as long as he is alive? We will examine more of these ideas later, through the lens that many a story from this great big book opens up for us to immerse ourselves in.
(The image is AI-generated and is based on Albert Camus’ book The Stranger)
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