What Is the Meaning of Life? An Existentialist Answer

1. The existentialist problem: no built-in script

2. Camus and the absurd: Sisyphus as a model

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Camus and absurdism

Albert Camus published The Myth of Sisyphus in 1942. His central idea is the absurd: the clash between our desire for meaning and the world’s refusal to provide one.

Camus is not saying life has no value. He is saying value is not guaranteed from outside.

Sisyphus, in Greek myth, is forced to roll a boulder uphill forever. Camus uses him as a symbol of repetitive human effort.

A clarifying analogy: imagine sending a question into a canyon and hearing only your own echo. The silence is the absurd. The echo is our attempt to make sense anyway.

Camus rejects three escapes:

• denial
• false certainty
• suicide as a solution to absurdity

Instead, he argues for revolt: living with clear eyes and refusing surrender to despair.

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diagram

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Why Camus still matters

Camus helps when life feels repetitive.

A job can become endless tickets, meetings, and inbox cleanup. A degree can feel like constant deadlines. A relationship can feel ordinary after the first excitement fades.

Camus does not promise that repetition disappears. He asks a harder question: can you keep your dignity inside repetition?

For Camus, the answer is yes. Meaning can come from the stance you take toward the task, not from a final cosmic reward.

3. Viktor Frankl: meaning in suffering, not from suffering

4. Applying existentialism to career and identity

5. What to do when nothing feels meaningful

Transcript

Welcome to Slate. Today we're looking at What Is the Meaning of Life? An Existentialist Answer. We'll cover Sartre's radical freedom and its weight, Camus and absurdism: the myth of Sisyphus, Frankl's logotherapy — finding meaning in suffering, and Applying existentialist ideas to modern career and identity. Let's get into it.

The existentialist question starts with a shock. If the universe does not hand us a ready-made purpose, then what are we supposed to do with our lives? Jean-Paul Sartre said human beings are “condemned to be free,” because we are thrown into the world without a preset essence. First we exist. Then we choose who we become. That sounds liberating. It also sounds heavy. Here is the key distinction. A chair has a function before it is built. A human being does not. Sartre’s point was not that life is random in every sense. It was that meaning is not waiting in the sky like a label. We make ourselves through action, habit, and commitment. That is why existentialism can feel uncomfortable. If you blame your career, your family, or the economy for everything, you may be hiding from your own agency. Sartre called that bad faith. It is the habit of pretending you had no choice when you did. The diagram shows the basic structure: no fixed essence, then choice, then responsibility, then identity. That chain is the burden and the freedom. The question is not “What is my true essence?” The question is “What am I making myself into, right now, through the choices I repeat?”

Albert Camus took the problem in a different direction. He agreed that we want meaning. He also said the world does not answer that demand. That mismatch is what he called the absurd. It is not that life is silly. It is that our hunger for clarity meets a silent universe. Camus framed the issue in 1942 in The Myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus is the figure from Greek myth condemned to roll a boulder uphill forever, only to watch it fall back down. If you read that story literally, it is hopeless. Camus reads it as a test of human dignity. The point is not to pretend the boulder will stay put. The point is to face the task without lying to yourself about the outcome. Camus calls for revolt. That means continuing to live, create, and love without demanding cosmic guarantees. Here is the practical lesson. If your work, relationship, or study does not produce permanent certainty, that does not make it meaningless. Much of human life is like tending a garden in dry weather. You do the work because the work itself matters, even though the weather is not under your control. The image shows Sisyphus at the hill, and that image captures Camus’s challenge: can a person live fully without final answers? Camus’s answer is yes, if you choose lucidity over illusion.

Viktor Frankl brings a different voice because he was a psychiatrist and a survivor of Nazi concentration camps, including Auschwitz. His book Man’s Search for Meaning first appeared in 1946. Frankl did not write about meaning from a distance. He wrote from experience. Frankl’s central claim is that meaning can be found in three places: in work or creation, in love or encounter, and in the attitude we take toward unavoidable suffering. That third point is the one people remember, because it is so demanding. Frankl was not saying suffering is good. He was saying that when suffering cannot be removed, a person can still choose a stance toward it. That choice can preserve dignity. It can also preserve a sense of self. Here is the difference from Camus. Camus emphasizes the absurd condition and the courage to live without appeal. Frankl emphasizes responsibility to meaning, even in pain. If Camus asks, “Can you live without final answers?” Frankl asks, “What meaning is this moment asking of you?” The diagram breaks Frankl’s model into three routes. Work. Love. Attitude. Those are not abstract ideals. They are concrete ways people stay human when life narrows. Think of them as three doors still open when one door has closed.

Now the ideas get practical. Many people today do not suffer from a lack of options. They suffer from too many options and no stable story about themselves. That is a very existential problem. Sartre would say your career is not your essence. It is one field where you exercise freedom. Camus would say you may never get a perfect answer about the “right” path, so do not wait for certainty before acting. Frankl would ask what service, responsibility, or contribution gives your work meaning. Here is a useful test. If your identity collapses the moment your job title changes, the job has become too large in your sense of self. A title is a tool, not a soul. The chart shows a common pattern in modern life. Prestige can be high. Meaning can be low. Income can be high. Connection can be low. Existentialism helps you see those gaps clearly. A strong career choice is not only about salary or status. It is about whether your daily actions line up with values you can actually live with. That may mean choosing craft over prestige, service over image, or a slower path over a flashy one. The right choice is not the one that makes you look alive. It is the one that helps you become more fully alive.

When nothing feels meaningful, the existentialist answer is not to wait for a lightning bolt. It is to start with action small enough to be real. Sartre says you are still choosing. Camus says you can live without certainty. Frankl says meaning can appear in what you create, whom you love, and how you suffer. That gives a practical sequence. First, tell the truth about the emptiness. Do not dress it up. Second, identify one area of responsibility you can actually touch today. Third, act in a way you could respect tomorrow. Meaning often begins as a thin thread, not a thunderclap. The sequence diagram shows that order: awareness, choice, action, reflection. It is not glamorous, but it is usable. If you are stuck, make the next honest move. Send the application. Call the friend. Finish the draft. Take the walk. These are not small in existential terms. They are how a self gets built. Existentialism does not promise comfort. It promises honesty. And honesty is a better starting point than despair, because it keeps the future open. The meaning of life, from this view, is not found once and for all. It is made, tested, revised, and lived.