The Question Of Whether Life Has Meaning

The Question Of Whether Life Has Meaning

The question of whether life has meaning is difficult to answer. Two authors sought to have to explain the situation but given their differences in opinions, their explanations had some notable differences as well as similarities. According to Camus (579), all extraordinary deeds and all outstanding thoughts have a ridiculous beginning. In fact, life is formless, and absurdity brings happiness to the world. He pictures a man in a telephone conversation that is not possible to hear. He makes meaningless gestures that would amaze an observer. Taylor, on the other hand, acknowledges that in deed life has no meaning in a certain context. Only after the realization of their importance to man or the significance of their activities, that his life attains some form of meaning. Taylor and Camus present two conflict explanations on the question of life meaning but there are similarities existing ideas present in their explanations.

Both Camus and Taylor agree that to some extent life has no meaning. For instance, Camus argues that, “….and during every day of an unillustrious life, time carries us”. Camus explains that Sisyphus is an absurd hero. The gods condemn the man into rolling the stone up the hill. The measuring of this activity is through the depth of time and the outline of the sky. The activity will continue repeating itself without any definite timeline. According to Camus, this is the absurdity of the life of Camus. The hero will roll a stone that will afterwards roll back into its initial position requiring him to roll it up the hero again. There are no gains from the activity given that the rolling of the stones will not be beneficial to Sisyphus. Camus views this as absurd and compares it to the repetitive nature of the lives human beings lead.

Taylor recounts the case of Sisyphus according to Camus. Camus explains that the gods decided to punish Sisyphus by condemning him into rolling a heavy stone up a hill endlessly. Sisyphus rolls the stone up the hill but the stone rolls back into its initial location as if there had been no activity prior to that. The myth explains that he will roll the stone infinitely without an end. It further states that, despite the rolling he will undertake, his life does not amount into any meaning. This is because his task is difficult, endless, repetitive, and amounts to nothing. According to Kluge (70), “Nothing comes out of what he (Sisyphus) is doing expect simply, more of the same”. This according to Taylor is the state of meaningless in life. Taylor contrasts Camus in the case of meaningless deriving its definition from the task being difficult and tiresome. This is because even if the stone that Sisyphus was carrying were light, his life would still not amount to any meaning. Hence, the sole definition is meaningless if the activities of life do not amount into anything that is substantial.

One of the major differences between the views of meaningless in life is the issue of difficulty and repetitiveness of activities. Camus maintains that repetitive nature of activities, the activities having an indefinite timeline, and their difficulty makes life absurd. In fact, he states that, “the workman of today works every day in his life, in the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd” (Camus 581). Taylor is careful and maintains that difficulty and repetitive nature of activities. In fact, according to him having activities amounting to nothing is the sole definiti.............