Life is meaningless in the end

We were promised and shown so many things as kids

Disney like relationships with most movies having a love story.

A meaningful and unique career

Parents who seemed perfect but turned out to be flawed like everyone else

That we would have love and a community of people around us as we grow up who would care about us and support us

That god always makes sure to gift the ones who are good

It really just created so much false expectations regarding life

Ik im just seeking validation here and want someone to hear me out but ultimately life is just extremely meaningless and I struggle to come to terms with it considering I had such high hopes as a kid

I try to work towards things I want in life but I struggle because I get attached and it just only brings up the trauma I’ve got from the world.

I started meditating recently so I could atleast find peace with what i have already. It has only made me more aware of how hurt I have been from the hopes we got as a kid and they just weren’t fulfilled

There is no meaning to life.

I was wandering through life, trying to live the lives that every human being who ever existed on Earth once lived—in different races, countries, cultures, and centuries. I succeeded. I experienced life from countless human perspectives. I have felt their joy, nostalgia, grief, suffering, and hopelessness.

Every single one of them was trying to give life a different meaning. Some copied the meaning of others. Some created their own. Some rejected the very idea of existence. Yet every one of them became enslaved by the meaning they chose. And some were not even given a choice; they were forced to accept a meaning imposed upon them.

But how can one give meaning to life solely through life itself?

Perhaps one must still give life their own meaning, despite being spiteful, miserable, sluggish, or ecstatic. In the end, what we choose as our meaning may be subtle and insignificant to some, yet heaven itself to others.

I think people who claim to be “absurdists”, or are fundamentally attached to absurdism as a philosophical concept in the modern day, are wrong. The idea that life has no meaning whatsoever, so “why care? Just have fun”, doesn’t make sense to me. You’re recognising all the bad in the world and saying, “Let’s have fun instead”, while proceeding to work a 9-to-5 job, rely on healthcare, pay taxes, and inevitably contribute to a system you supposedly “don’t care about”. If you were truly an absurdist, wouldn’t you be protesting capitalism? The idea of not caring doesn’t fundamentally exist in this day and age. You have to care to survive. You have to go to work to maintain an illusion of freedom. So, to say, “Let’s just go have fun”, as if that somehow implies you’re free, doesn’t make sense. Because you’re not free. Your leash has just gained a few more metres.

My issue isn’t necessarily with traditional absurdism itself, but with how people interpret it and apply it to their lives. You can believe life has no inherent meaning, reject society’s expectations, and decide to live however you want, but none of that changes the reality you live in. You’re still dependent on money, employment, healthcare, and the systems that allow you to survive. So what exactly have you freed yourself from? Have you actually escaped anything, or have you just changed your perspective on the situation you’re in?

Money, employment, and the systems we live under might be social constructs, but the consequences of them are very real. You can’t just decide not to care when your survival depends on things you have no choice but to participate in. And this is where I struggle with the idea that life has no meaning, so we should just accept that and have fun. Why does recognising how absurd the world is mean you should accept it rather than question it? Why does the absence of meaning mean you should just get comfortable with the way things are, rather than challenge the systems that restrict your freedom in the first place?

I’m not saying everyone has to follow one philosophy, or that being an absurdist automatically means you should protest capitalism. I think people can take ideas from different philosophies, disagree with others, or not have a clear answer at all. But I do think there’s a difference between accepting that life might be meaningless and accepting the conditions you’re forced to live under. Philosophy can change how you see the world, but it doesn’t automatically change the world itself. You can convince yourself that nothing matters, but you still have to live with the consequences of how society operates.

I think most people want some form of freedom. The ability to have enough food, not constantly worry about money, and actually have control over how they spend their lives. But even after thousands of years of human advancement, we’re still dealing with survival, inequality, and the distribution of power. The circumstances might have changed, but a lot of the fundamental problems remain. We have more technology, more convenience, and more choices than ever, yet so much of our lives are still dictated by the need to work and survive. So how free are we really?

When someone says they’ve accepted that life has no meaning and decided to have fun instead, I can’t help but question whether they’ve actually confronted the problem or just found a way to live comfortably with it. And maybe that’s where my disagreement lies. It’s not necessarily that absurdism is wrong, but that people seem to use it as a way to justify accepting the world as it is, without questioning why it has to be that way in the first place.

You can stop caring about the meaning of life without escaping the reality of living it. And to me, that’s the contradiction. You can convince yourself that nothing matters, but you still have to participate in a world where almost everything you need to survive matters. Your attitude towards the world might change, but the world hasn’t changed with it. So I struggle to understand how simply accepting the absurd can be mistaken for genuine freedom.

Just to clarify, this isn’t intended as hate towards absurdism or anyone who identifies with it. These are simply my current thoughts and interpretations, and I’m more than open to hearing other perspectives, having my points challenged, or being shown a different way of looking at things. I’m sharing this to encourage discussion, not to dismiss anyone else’s beliefs, and I’d genuinely be interested in hearing what others think, even if they completely disagree with me.

There is a monster that haunts me day and night. He is so powerful that he can drive me to the edge of madness. He wants me dead, but I keep fighting for my life.
Yet, sometimes, I grow tired of fighting. I surrender for a moment and whisper to him, “Please, either leave me alone or kill me.”
But he refuses to let me go.
Instead, he slowly poisons me every day, forcing me to feel the pain over and over again, as if suffering were meant to last for eternity.
He wants me drowned beneath the ocean, where darkness stretches endlessly and no light can reach me. There, I would spend eternity gasping for a light that will never come He keeps whispering in my ear:
“Don’t lose hope.”
But how can I hold on to hope when the very thing that keeps me alive is the same thing that seems to be punishing me?
One day, I finally gathered the courage to ask him:
“Why are you doing this to me?”
He looked at me and answered:
“Because that is the fate written for you

Within my readings, I've come to understand thinkers like Albert Camus and Emil Cioran emphasize a need for death to not be pursued. In a sense, they both condemn it, writing that despite an absurd and meaningless universe, one's life should be lived, and any attempt to escape it is meaningless. I once took comfort in Absurdism, but as I pondered about their assertions, I saw how they relied on false appeals to the pathos and ethos.

For example, both assert that death is to be rebelled against, and that life is the means of rebellion. Death is an inevitable force, but our very act of fighting against it, allows us to take a stand toward something beyond ourselves, and "smiling back at death" is our form of retaliation. Within this argument, there lies the anthropomorphic fallacy. Concepts such as life and death are treated as entities that enact or value certain actions or outcomes. Requiring us to take steps that are in accordance or against their values or innate qualities. But this just isn't the case, death is simply the absence of life, the absence of biological processes. There is no "reaper" that loses when life is content or suffers, no "being" that wins when life ends. Even for those who view it as a logical argument, as life is our natural state which should be prolonged, there lies the inertia fallacy. In any of these arguments that discourage pursuing death, there are appeals to value, not actual objective truths. Existential/Absurdist philosophers themselves argue value is subjective and dependent on the mind, and so, there exists no rationale to pursue either life or death.

I want to understand what absurdists believe despite this fact, or whether some have not reflected on it yet. In any case, I want to know what makes you as an absurdist pursue life, argue against self-inflicted death, or contend for life?

(Please do not comment to state some arbitrary fact or unnecessary point. And please stick to the prompt, don't try to argue some point that is supposed to be "eye opening" but doesn't contribute to the conversation in any meaningful way)

Does anyone else find the fact that we're conscious kinda absurd in a way thats almost creepy?

I don't mean just "life has no meaning" because thats been said a million times.

I mean the actual weirdness of the situation.

We're literally matter. atoms, cells, chemicals, whatever... and somehow this stuff became conscious enough to stop and ask why it exists.

Like, matter is somehow questioning its own existence.

We have this ridiculous situation where a tiny part of the universe is sitting inside the universe going "why is there a universe?" and "why am i here?"

and then theres the whole why is there something instead of nothing thing...

wouldnt absolute nothing be the less strange option? no space, no time, no matter, no consciousness, nothing. There wouldnt even be anyone there to wonder about it.

but somehow there is something. and somehow this something produced these weird little biological things that can notice it and start asking questions about the whole thing lol

idk, maybe thats basically the absurd itself. the fact that we're here demanding an explanation from something that never promised us one.

I just find the whole situation really fucking strange when you actually stop taking existence for granted.

I understand life is neutral. The trees grow, the earth spins, and tide ebbs and flows. I live, I die, and so does every other organism.

I am, in the large scope of things, nothing special.

Therefore I should not be surprised when things in my life don't end up going the ways I'd prefer them to go. I shouldn't be surprised when I find myself so at odds with the state of the world so much so that I feel like I'm going insane.

Like I said, the earth spins. Like, really fast, too. And there's another rock that spins around it. Two floating rocks spinning around a giant ball of fire.

Yeah.

I wake up every day on this spinning rock. It cares not for me, but I shouldn't take it personal. It doesn't know I'm here. It cares not for my pathetic adult life or my daydreams. Sure, I can try my best to weave a story together to fit some romantic narrative, but in reality it's all just...

Madness.

Not like Charles Manson madness. Like, 'everything is constantly repeating itself and there's nothing I can do about it' type madness. I mean a space rock could come crashing down on me and that would be it.

But I still have to pretend like that won't happen. I have to pretend that something catastrophically terrible won't happen to me when I'm driving my car at 70 miles per hour to get to work and back because someone has to pay my bills.

I have to act like I have dreams I believe I can follow. I have to act comfortable despite the fact I have no idea how my car works (aside from doing general maintenance), how a computer really works, or how my cell phone really works. Like, the three things I am required to use every day to live.

I have to act like my life is normal despite the fact that society has only persisted in this fashion for not even 100 years. I have to act like the entire foundation of my life doesn't rest upon a lifestyle that produces more waste than it does goods for people.

Like, I get that everything is neutral. The flowers bloom no matter what I do, babies are born everyday and people die every day. Someone is probably having sex right now.

And the madness persists. Every. Day. But to be successful you can't be mad. You have to put on your bootstraps, stay focused, and discipline yourself to the point where you're capable of ​​being a 'functional adult'. It's crazy. Like, I guess the food is good n' all, but...

I mean, I live knowing I'm going to die someday. Some of my friends will die before I do, too. I have to live knowing I feel physical and emotional pain, that I'm going to likely get cancer someday, and that I have no real control over anything in my life besides... well, all the monotonous things of my adult life.

I have to live knowing life is madness. I didn't 'decide' to wake up this morning. It just happened. Just like my birth. I didn't 'decide' to make my heart beat, yet it beats on and on.

Now I don't want this vent to sound too 'woe is me' because that's not what I'm going for. What I'm saying is that the layers of madness that must be put aside to perpetuate a 'normal' life are...

Well, maddening. ​

To expect everything to be clean? To expect everything to be affordable? To expect others to be rational? Madness.

Every day I expect things to be maddening and it never fails. There is a constant stream of freeway noise that will never cease. There are people chasing balls on t.v. for millions of dollars. There are people being paid to play fake people in front of people for huge amounts of money. There are people that fly giant metal machines from one side of the world to the other for a good salary. There are lethal microorganisms. Bugs can kill me. People can kill me. Don't even get me started on allergies...

But I should just 'calm down' or something. Sure. I mean my life isn't terrible.

It used to be fun being conscious of just how insane everything is. But now I understand it's not really a choice to go crazy. There's so much madness in the world it's basically impossible to escape, especially when you're employed. 12 hour days are normal. I mean, not just normal... some one HAS to do them or the normal people won't be able to be... normal.

I'm sure the the madness used to be fun to think about. However, right when someone starts expecting themselves be an adult, things immediately change. Why?​ Because they're against the tide at every moment they attempt sanity. No wonder the adults are so anxious.

Not to mention the kids.

I pity them the most. I remember when I learned about the sun being 93 million miles away and how it would eventually engulf the earth before having to go home and finish my math homework.

I know how confusing the English language is to learn. Over two to's is too much. I tried helping an 8 year old with her English homework a few weeks ago and honestly I just felt like I was ragebaiting her the whole time.

But I'm getting off topic. The point is that life is madness: unbiased, neutral, and lawless madness that we must turn aside every day in order to facilitate a world 'worth living in'. Sound impossible? Good.

Because it is.

Here's what I want you to do. Go outside tonight, listen to that constant stream of freeway noise in the distance (might hear a train if you're lucky), look up at the stars, and just think about how small you are and how deep inside you know this whole thing is ridiculous, and then LAUGH about it. Because truly, we are all fools for believing anything we do on this earth will amount to anything beyond waste.

It's not you're fault, either. It's nobody's fault. It's nothing personal. And trying to make it so would be an incredible waste of time, energy, and heartache. Take all the pictures you want, remember all the names you can, but remember how little it all matters and laugh about it.

Guess that's it.

Life is meaningless: that’s what’s been going through my head recently. Everything’s dark and there’s no point. Nietzche quotes are flowing through my head. What literature will save my life?

Forgive me if I'm missing anything but I find it a bit ironic for an absurdist sub to not be very idk absurd.

Hello fellow absurdists. 🪨 If there is someone who has read Lazare Bickel's article "La physique confirme la philosophie" ("Physics confirms philosophy") which is mentioned in The Rebel, could you please explain how it fits into Camus' philosophy? I unfortunately couldn't find the article online, but would love to read it.

I've got three options for "readers" in existentialism. Which do you think is the best?

* *The Penguin Book of Existential Philosophy* (ed. Jonathan Webber, 2025)

* *Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre* (ed. Walter Kaufmann, 1956)

* *Basic Writings of Existentialism* (ed. Gordon Marino, 2004)

Or is there another one I'm missing?

Camus seems to dismiss philosophers like kant, kierkegaard, jaspers, and others for taking an unsubstantiated leap of faith.

But doesn't camus do the same? He says we must revolt because its the only honest and dignified response but that itself seems very dishonest. Why is this the most dignified response of all? Why is this even revolt if we do not have any gods to revolt against?

It seems the revolt is against the urge to surrender to nihilism but wouldn't calling that revolt be a dishonest leap of faith? You cannot revolt against an idea any more than you can revolt against 2+2=4 or revolt against a rock by flipping it off for example?

And to claim "the struggle towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One MUST imagine sisyphus happy" seems to be a massive leap that I don't see where camus logically proves? It often feels like camus asserts these things not because they are true but because he simply just... wants them to be legit.

So I guess my question is whether absurdism is a leap of faith or if I am missing something.

Most people think Franz Kafka's stories (The Metamorphosis, The Trial) are just bleak surrealism. But the older I get, the more modern life feels distinctly "Kafkaesque"—not because of giant bugs, but because of:

1. Endless Bureaucracy Without Clear Rules: We navigate unseen algorithms, automated customer support, and corporate ladders where no single person makes a decision, yet everyone follows the script.
2. Productivity Alienation: Like Gregor Samsa, our worth is often reduced strictly to output and efficiency. When we burn out, the guilt of "not contributing" hits harder than the exhaustion itself.
3. The Unnamed Guilt: The feeling that we are constantly falling behind or doing something wrong, even when we follow all societal rules.

I’ve been reflecting on whether Kafka wrote horror or simply documented the inevitable psychological state of the modern human condition.

How do you navigate this feeling of modern absurdity without turning completely cynical?

(For anyone interested in a deeper visual breakdown and animated essay exploring this idea, I put together a short video essay exploring Kafka's concepts here: https://youtu.be/wK5dqh35lB4 )

Is it normal to actively embrace the absurd by laughing in the face of life’s total lack of inherent purpose, while simultaneously fighting off those sudden, terrifying moments where you slip through the cracks and fall headfirst into the abyss of absolute nihilism?

So me and my teammate are doing an absurdist play, and in around 2 weeks, we need to submit a report on what absurdism is as a genre and a critique of an already pre-existing absurdist play.

So, for the performance itself, we have a good amount of time. I just wanted to know if anyone has an idea of how we can express absurdism in our play. The point of absurdism is to express meaninglessness, yet we need an artistic intention in our play. So I don't know how to express meaninglessness while also having an intention with it. Is the meaninglessness initself supposed to be the point? If so, how can we show it? I'm just trying to understand what the best way to express the essence of absurdism is. I understand that absurdism as a concept is different from the theatrical idea, but at its core, the point of absurdist plays center around the concept of absurdism as a philisophical concept. If you have any ideas, I would really appreciate it if you could share!!! Also, feel free to give us a few examples of good absurdist plays that we can find on the internet and critique scenes of. Thank you!

Absurd explains why Meursault even bothers to go to his mother’s funeral, why he kills an arab. Because why not. But why would Camus write him angry in the scene with the priest? He is supposed to not give a shit.

Es ce que c'est bizarre de trouver du réconfort dans l absurde et le mythe de sysiphe ou l'étranger tout en étant musulman donc penser que la vie a un sens ?

In the professional field, the disconnection between what I long for and what I do is becoming increasingly obvious. I crave job satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment, but most of what I do is simply copy pasting data from one screen to another while following some apparatchik procedures.

As the absurd becomes clear to me, the below quote from Herman Hesse's Steppenwolf resonates more and more. I feel forced to adopt a mercenary mindset, where I simply exchange my time, energy and skills to the highest bidder without caring about company culture, vision and all that noise.

I doubt that I am the only one, and I think many younger millennials and zoomers are waking up to the realities of work. And then I'm not even talking about inflation: the effort you put in remains the same or increases, but your purchasing power keeps going down. Do you feel something similar?

"Do you think I can't understand your horror of the fox trot, your dislike of bars and dancing floors, your loathing of jazz and the rest of it? I understand it only too well, and your dislike of politics as well, your despondence over the chatter and irresponsible antics of the parties and the press, your despair over the war, the one that has been and the one that is to be, over all that people nowadays think, read and build, over the music they play, the celebrations they hold, the education they carry on. You are right, Steppenwolf, right a thousand times over, and yet you must go to the wall. You are much too exacting and hungry for this simple, easygoing and easily contented world of today. You have a dimension too many. Whoever wants to live and enjoy his life today must not be like you and me. Whoever wants music instead of noise, joy instead of pleasure, soul instead of gold, creative work instead of business, passion instead of foolery, finds no home in this trivial world of ours."

I don’t believe life has an inherent meaning, but I still find many things worth caring about.
Does that seem contradictory to you?
If life has no objective or predetermined meaning, can things still have genuine meaning or value on a personal level? Or does caring deeply about something imply that you believe life has some kind of meaning?

Hello everyone,

To begin I have a partner who suffers from quite a few disabilities and they have been ever increasing in terms of pain. We were discussing last night absurdist philosophy and how while it won't make everything feel better it might give some insight on pain and our existence as a whole.

Does anyone have any good recommendations for absurdist books that go into chronic pains, or have a good general discussion on absurdism to delve into.

Thank you in advance!

i guess im asking if someone can find true joy in pure repetition or is the “happiness” he feels more of a self-persuasion? (sorry if this is a stupid question)