The Absurd is the distressing match between man's interrogation on his ultimate questions and the silent universe.
Camus said that man must mantain this match, for closing it would be an escape or a liberation.
Though, it doesn't seem a great solution to me.
Sartre instead said that the only way to get rid of anguish was to realize that it's up to us to shape ourselves and to be responsible of our choices; compared to that, Camus' cure sounds like a dead end (and a way to -having therfore analyzed the absurd condition- assimilate it).

But what if man's question was wrong?
Douglas Adams docet. ( )

Camus opens with the famous line, There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide. But this book is not about suicide as we usually think of it. Camus is restating Hamlet's soliloquy, To be or not to be--that is the question... Camus' answer: the point is to live. This is all about logical suicide, not suicide connected with emotional distress or noble causes.

Finding no evidence of a transcendent "meaning of life," Camus asserts: It was previously a question of finding out whether or not life had to have a meaning to be lived. It now becomes clear, on the contrary, that it will be lived all the better if it has no meaning.

That is, don't look to an Ultimate Cause to justify your life and your actions. Embrace the freedom to choose for yourself, but also take the responsibility of choice on yourself.

Camus: Everything is permitted, exclaims Ivan Karamazov, which smacks of the absurd. But, "Everything is permitted" does not mean that nothing is forbidden. The absurd merely confers an equivalence on the consequences of those actions. A mind imbued with the absurd [...] is ready to pay up.

The Myth of Sisyphus is Camus' single expository work of philosophy. He is more prolific, and generally more successful in exploring his philosophy, in his novels and dramatic works. MS is a difficult read, but gives back according to the measure of effort the reader provides. It works well as an adjunct to Camus' fiction to reveal a greater truth than can be found in a logical development of facts. ( )

i love this collection. for the first time in my life, i felt as though i weren't alone. ( )