If you have some time, I’d recommend reading The Myth of Sysiphus instead.

The mind is free, with not much to worry about and starts to wander. It lands on the question: “What is the meaning of it all?”.

Its not difficult to arrive at the answer: “There isn’t a meaning, really”, and sets in an existential crisis.

But, I’d argue that there is a flaw in the question. Meaning isn’t something one should try to look for at all. Maybe, purpose is the right quest. And if you try to observe (or just use Camus’ observations), the apparent purpose can be inferred.

Universe is hostile, destructive and doesn’t really care about things. Statistically speaking, that makes sense. There are usually many more possible configuration for (what we call) disorder than (what we call) order. So, things naturally tend toward disorder and seemingly, destruction.

Life, on the other hand, behaves strangely. It has somehow figured out a way to, in a limited sense, continue order. Organisms are able to replicate very unlikely combinations of chemicals over and over again. Going at a macro level and thinking in an anthropocentric way, that is what humans seem to do as well - build complex structures and ideas which would be fairly unlikely to just randomly show up naturally otherwise.

And this is what can be taken as the purpose. To revolt against nature, fight against destruction, defy the rise of entropy. Life’s been trying to attempt bringing some predictability and organisation (at one level anyway) to the world. This experiment was most likely started ~4.5 billion years on Earth. Lets try to prolong it - just for the sake of curiosity if not anything else.

Back to posts