Existential abyss

when i was facing existential crisis ... did i say deep.... yup deeeeeep existential crisis ... i was following nihilism,romanticism and other things.... i came across this little piece from french philosopher Albert Camus ...

I think James will like it since he is of writer type...

its not really about nihilism or killing yourself,its about existentialism which is supposed to be opposite though i don't get the difference....


My dear,

I don’t know what to do today, help me decide.

Should I cut myself open and pour my heart on these pages?
Or should I sit here and do nothing, nobody’s asking anything of me afterall.

Should I jump off the cliff that has my heart beating so and develop my wings on the way down?
Or should I step back from the edge, and let the others deal with this thing called courage.

Should I stare back at the existential abyss that haunts me so and try desperately to grab from it a sense of self?
Or should I keep walking half-asleep, only half-looking at it every now and then in times in which I can’t help doing anything but?

Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?

Falsely yours,
Albert Camus

I really liked it all darth!

these bits especially..

thanks for sharing it

I love ablert camus for things like this. He was briliant yet I feel in mental distress. His prose was always of the not negative but crisis sort of way. Great post thank you.

I "discovered" Camus when I was in college & fantasized of meeting & talking into the night with him ... I had cried, laughed, and spent hours thinking over words of his. Thanks.

Im a philosophy major so I am familiar with camus through school as well, darn the education. But here is another one I like by camus

“It was as if that great rush of anger had washed me clean, emptied me of hope, and, gazing up at the dark sky spangled with its signs and stars, for the first time, the first, I laid my heart open to the benign indifference of the universe.
To feel it so like myself, indeed, so brotherly, made me realize that I'd been happy, and that I was happy still. For all to be accomplished, for me to feel less lonely, all that remained to hope was that on the day of my execution there should be a huge crowd of spectators and that they should greet me with howls of execration.”
― Albert Camus, The Stranger

exactly... when he says "Should I kill myself or have a cup of coffee?"
he is implying "getting coffee" and "killing yourself" are equally important/meaningless things...
he isn't being nihilist.... its kind of positive when he says suicide is as meaningful as getting coffee.... and if you think about it,he is right...

Yeah I totally agree its kind of like when thinking about Sui you have to ask yourself is this going to be like an everyday thing and if it is then your in trouble. At least I think so are they equally meaningful yes

benign indifference of the universe--things are what they are and will be what they will be

Yep things will be what they will be and that's it. Like I can't remember who maybe Freud said sometimes a light bulb is just that a light bulb

you are making me jealous... i love philosophy.....in college my elective subject was "Philosophy of mind" and you are philosophy major ..... Freud is my favorite... i think his contribution to human society is as big as newton/Eisenstein.... the way he has deciphered human emotions...they are extremely useful.... he kind of invented whole thing!

Yes Freud started it all or at least I think so as talking about modern psychology.

"The Stranger" by Albert Camus seem interesting though i don't know if i can read it completely... i found "The Brothers Karamazov" too heavy to complete... i liked Richard Ford's Pulitzer Prize winner Independence Day ... but i am usually not in good mood and if i read these books they definitely aren't going to make me happy!!!!!!!

and honestly without modern psychology we all might be in asylum today, instead of discussing philosophy here...

You are spot on we would def be locked away living in pestilent squaller.