A stranger in a strange land...

What would happen if life had no purpose? What would happen if life was predestined and there was nothing we could do about it? What if we had no free will? What if we were slaves to the fate of the universe?

Scary thought.

And yet most religions would argue in favor of this. Christianity for example, though it argues in favor of free will, focuses all its emphasis on the afterlife (heaven and hell) rather than the present. The purpose of life here on earth is to earn eternity with God.

The Buddhists have an interesting philosophy. There is no past and there is no future. The past is always leaving and the future is always coming. Hence, there is only the present. This is the kind of feeling I got from The Stranger

Camus confounds me. I can't wrap my head around his absurdist views...making purpose out of nothing? It's such a backwards, strange, odd idea. Partly because in America, we LIVE for purpose, noble or not. Mostly, we live to love. Whether it be money, people, or ideas, we live to love. And thus we live to make sacrifices for what we love.

In Mersault's case, he lives to live. No love. No sacrifice. No purpose. Only what he makes it. According to Buddhism, he's living life the way it should be lived. He wants and desires and loves nothing. Therefore, there is no sacrifice and there is no suffering.

But does this make life more or less enjoyable to live? Maybe love and sacrifice are a personal choice, but are they a choice critical to fully and completely living?

"Fires can't be made with dead embers, nor can enthusiasm be stirred by spiritless men. Enthusiasm in our daily work lightens effort and turns even labor into pleasant tasks"