Albert Camus opened The Myth of Sisyphus with a claim that sounds dramatic but is meant plainly: the only serious philosophical problem is suicide. His question was whether life is worth living when it has no inherent meaning. The universe is silent. We demand meaning anyway. That collision between human longing and cosmic indifference is the absurd.

Camus did not conclude that life should be abandoned. He argued the opposite. Revolt, freedom, and passion are the responses he endorsed. Sisyphus, condemned to roll a boulder up a hill forever, is the hero of the essay. He knows the task is futile. He keeps pushing. Camus imagined him happy. The absurd does not require despair; it requires facing the lack of meaning without escape into religion, ideology, or self-deception.

Key ideas

• The absurd arises from the gap between our need for meaning and the world's silence.
• Revolt means living with that tension rather than resolving it.
• Freedom follows from abandoning false hopes.
• Passion means embracing present experience.

Absurdism is not nihilism. Nihilism says there is no meaning. Absurdism says we want meaning, cannot find it, and must live anyway.