Matt Fradd

They all claim the universe is absurd.

But he distinguished them according to the emotional response that you have to them.

Now, it is true that people have different responses.

I like to sometimes distinguish, for example, there's the kind of despair that guys like Sartre had.

You know, it's the kind of existentialism, the kind of absurdism that guys like Sartre had.

Existence is meaningless and the problem for me is to fight off despair.

Camus said the basic problem of philosophy is why shouldn't I commit suicide?

I wouldn't say that Camus was a very cheerful guy about this.

This is a very tragic choice that Sisyphus is condemned to rolling this rock up the mountain over and over and it keeps rolling down and the gods have determined he's going to do this forever.

So he does it cheerfully.

Look, if nothing has any meaning, how does it have any meaning that he's cheerful?

If nothing has any meaning, how does it have any meaning if he decides to commit suicide instead?

Nothing, nothing has any meaning.

But there's this despairing meaning, there's the despairing sort of nihilist who says, oh, nothing has any meaning, woe is me.

There's the pop culture nihilist who says, yeah, nothing has any meaning, man.

And that's cool.

I'm so cool that I like life meaningless.

And we heard that in some of the other clips, too.

I like it this way.

And, you know, there are all sorts of varieties of this.