Who Really Cares About the Meaning of Life?

Who really cares about the meaning of life? We all have to, or rather get to, live life and that, in itself, should be enough. We could all go crazy trying to figure out the meaning of life, but the more you try to think about it, the smaller you feel. Little problems in your life start to feel insignificant when compared to the vastness of the universe, and its hard to imagine how any of it could possibly matter. But the truth is, it does matter. It matters because it matters to you and that is reason enough. Why should we have to deny our feelings and dismiss them as if they are some product of a scheme that every human being ever bought into? We should take advantage of what makes us human, our higher level of thinking and feeling, rather than throwing it away because it seems easier to live without feelings.

Meursault, in The Stranger, is driven by his physical desires, and as we see after his death sentence, has a very matter of fact outlook on life. He decides that God is a waste of his time and that it really shouldn't matter if he dies now or in twenty years. He even states that he will be forgotten about after he dies and that is okay. But it shouldn't have to be. It should be okay to be affected by things such as friends and family and life and death on more than just a physical level. I also think that it is impossible to have nothing but physical drive to live life. I believe that Meursault feels more than he is willing to admit, and that he suppresses his emotions to make accepting his fate easier.

As much as Meursault likes to believe that he doesn't care about living or dying too much, I think that he still found his own meaning in life. He does long for things, such as the beach, and his freedom, and even Marie, even though he often doesn't admit it. It is exactly the desire for such freedom that gives his life meaning.

The idea of existentialism I think is nothing more than an extremely pessimistic outlook on life. Humans should embrace the emotions that make them human and, whether life has meaning or not, we should find things that give it meaning for us. Even if we feel a sense of fulfillment from love and friends simply because it is a made up trend, we still feel it, so it shouldn't matter where it came from. I also don't think that someone long ago made up those feelings. There is something in human DNA that makes us capable of those kind of emotions for a reason, so we should just go with it.