The Stranger

In class last Friday, we discussed the idea of nihilism. The discussion reminded me of the existential novel, “The Stranger”, by french author, Albert Camus. The book is about an Algerian man named Meursault who killed an Arab he saw on the beach because he claimed the “sun was too hot”. Meursault feels no remorse whatsoever after murdering this innocent person on the beach for no apparent reason. This character represents nihilistic beliefs that nothing in the world has a real existence and therefore, life is meaningless. Meursault rejects all universal moral principles, which is exactly the opposite of absolution, which is universal moral standards. Reading this novel was extremely frustrating and also entertaining. It was the first time I had been introduced to extreme existential nihilistic ideas and it made me question the value of meaning, purpose and significance in life. What was most frustrating about Meursault was that he didn’t have any feeling or response to his murder. He didn’t care that he killed an innocent man because he didn’t see why it mattered since life is insignificant and has no purpose. The novel made me think about how much meaning we put into everything. Everything from thinking that seeing five red cars driving in a row is significant, to this immense universal pressure that everyone must have a purpose in life. After reading this book, I knew that I was not an existentialistic or a nihilistic, but it still makes me question the emphasize that humans put on meaning and morals.

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

Recently I watched a film called, “The Diving Bell and the Butterfly,” a French film, based on a memoir about a man with locked-in syndrome. The memoir was written by the former French editor of Elle magazine, Jean-Dominique Bauby, who suffered from a stroke, which left him completely paralyzed. However, he still had his memory and hearing and he was fully aware of his surroundings, but could only communicate with blinking is left eye lid. His whole memoir was dictated by him blinking his left eye-lid. The discussion we had in the last class about existence and meaning, brought this film to mind and made me think about it differently and I was inspired to look deeper into the film and the memoir. Was Jean-Dominique Bauby still the same person with only the ability to flicker his eye-lid? What is existence, meaning, and essence? Did he lose all of his identity? What is identity? Asking these questions has made me look forward to studying Philosophy more in depth.