I am a “stranger”, too—or am I? There is no “Reason” determining the whole universe, the earth, and the mind of man. But to say that “chance” dominates every process is to pose another determinism—i.e. in chance, events and things always need causes. But if one persists on arguing that a secret power, aside from the physical powers, must be a work especially in the life of human beings, I would say that one is merely adding up an insignificant meaning. Yet we have reason; we are rational. But we are “strangers”—or are we?
“The Stranger” is a novel that tells us the beauty of a (seemingly) indifferent human being named Meursault. Its voice is personal, as how we really face life. The constraint of cultural values, like that of love, has no meaning for him because he does not “understand” these values. Things like love of your mother or of your girlfriend, worth of working, concerns for unknown people, moral and legal matters, or even spirituality—they have no real meanings in themselves. The world at large, including us, is purely disinterested. Only the presence of “personality” gives color and light and shape to these boring concerns. Ironically, we do not acknowledge it, so we, like Meursault, do not really “understand.”
In the end of this struggle to comprehend things is death. What is then the value of values that we claim to be immortal when we know that we are mortals? Camus, as I understand him (do I understand him?), would have said that to be called a “stranger” has sense when to belong to the world of (created) values is as boring as for everybody.
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