The Stranger

This is an old blog that I had posted on Myspace in 2008. Ive been meaning to move some of my blogs posted there to blogger for sometime. I just happen to log in and actually do it. It might seem silly but since social networking sites sway with the trends, I dont know how log it will last, either my existence on the site or the site itself. I think its atleast something valid. Since I do post things that I feel pertain to me as a human being. Words that are simply better put. There will probably be more of these as time goes on and I seem to run out of shit to blog about. Ive been running on low for a while now.

I'm not really going to go into why I feel as though I have some sort of connection with this since I do not really feel as though I could describe it well enough into words. I suppose I could say I've always known I was "different" in some way,though I guess that could pertain to anyone but I'm refering to "society" as a general whole. I think differently,I question emotions and actions of people. I wonder "Why" a lot. If I just never "love" anyone,if I dont ever cry at a funeral,if I really dont love my mother as much as I really should, etc and if I dont do any of these things im labeled some sort of emotionless weird asshole. 

I've just started reading "The Stranger" by Albert Camus. This is all inspired by him. While reading the Introduction(Peter Dunwoodie) I came across this and something clicked in my head directly after reading it. I felt "hey,this is...me" Camus once suggested that "if you want to be a philosopher, write novels". I really dont think that will be happening anytime soon or ever. So I'll just post the paragraphs I felt strong about. 

"The answer must be sought in Meursault's own statements and attitudes, and it is in these that we encounter the philosophy of the Absurd that Meursault embodies.

As Meursault and his new girlfriend Marie dress after going for a swim Marie notices his black tie and asks if he is in mourning: 'i told her maman had died. She wanted to know how long ago,so i said "yesterday". She gave a little start but didnt say anything.' A few days later, when asked if he wants to marry her: 'I said it didnt make any difference to me and that we could if she wanted to...Then she pointed out that marriage was a serious thing. I said, "no". She stopped talking for a minute and looked at me without saying anything...After another moments silence, she mumbled that i was peculiar, that was probably why she loved me but that one day i might hate her for the same reason.' When asked by his defense counsel if his mothers death had upset him he replies: 'i probably did love maman, but that didnt mean anything. At one time or another all normal people have wished their loved ones were dead. Here the lawyer interrupted me and he seemed very upset'. Such responses are disconcerting not merely because they reveal the heros rather brutal directness and honesty, but because these very qualities are used to challenge more normal conventions and values. As Camus put it, 'Meursault is condemned because he does not play the game', because, far from being the apparently indifferent, unemotional individual that his account first suggests, his actions and statements are the direct consequence of a philosophical stance which rejects widespread social and moral norms. He is accused of indifference after putting his mother in a home or refusing to look at the corpse, yet he acknowledges that, once settled, she was happier with people of her own generation and,after her death,his first thought on reaching the old peoples home is to see her body. He is accused of callousness because he smokes or drinks at ther wake, yet he had though about it beforehand and decided 'it didnt matter'. Accused in short, of not displaying conventional attitudes and reactions. 

Meursault, then, is not an automaton, devoid of emotion, incapable of pleasure or reflection. On the contrary, it is in the name of alternative values that he undemonstratively opposes those of society. First and foremost among these values is, precisely, that of pleasure: whether in his work, on the beach, in his relations with Marie and his friends, even in prison, Meursault's primary concern is with immediate, sensual gratification. When such pleasures are unavailable, they can be dismissed; when offered, they are to be enjoyed; and from the outset the text makes it clear that the natural world (sky,sun,sea,light,warmth...) is the primary source of such pleasure, to the extent that Marie, whether in the sea, on the sand or in the smell of salt left on her pillow, is essentially the embodiment of those natural elements. Meursault dismisses the (cultural) notion of love, but fully appreciates the force of desire."

"The philosophy of Camus is a philosophy of the Absurd, and for him the Absurd springs from the relation of man to the world, of his legitimate aspirations to the vanity and the futility of human wishes. The conclusions which he draws from it are those of classical pessimism".