Life, Meaning, Rebellion, and Art

To say yes to the world, to reproduce it, is simultaneously to re-create the world and oneself, to become the great artist, the creator. —Albert Camus Note 1: If you have not already done so, please take a moment to read and consider my Read This First page before proceeding to the essay below. The topics I write about in this essay may be triggering to some. Note 2: If you purchase items from Amazon using the book links below, I will receive a (paltry) commission. My first encounter with Albert Camus’s writing was in high school. Someone, likely with good intentions but also an immensely overestimated sense of the philosophical capacities of teenage brains, made the lamentable choice of selecting The Stranger as required reading for a literature class. I read it reluctantly. I did not find it interesting. It made me uneasy for reasons I could not explain then and would not understand (or have the capacity to understand) until many years after. My second encounter with Camus’s writing…