The Stranger

"Camus's exploration of absurdism and the human condition in a meaningless universe aligns with Lex Fridman's philosophical discussions on consciousness, free will, and the nature of reality. It's an expected read for someone exploring the profound questions of existence."

"Yes, it’s called The Stranger, and sometimes The Outsider , depending on the translation. It’s the story of a character called Meursault. One day, he’s on the beach, and he shoots a character called an Arab. They have no specific name—he was an indigenous person on the beach. A trial takes place and we realize that Meursault is facing what Camus calls the “nakedness of man faced with the absurd.” He is floating about, really. He doesn’t show empathy. He doesn’t show remorse. Everything is absurd. The novel starts, in fact, with him just finding out his mother has died. He doesn’t seem to be mourning or grieving or expressing strong feelings. To me, it’s a very, very important book. It’s an allegory of Algeria and the colonial system, because lots of people in Algeria were behaving like Meursault, in a way. They would shoot someone and show no remorse. They would live in a country that is occupied, and act as if history wouldn’t judge them, as if it was perfectly normal and there was no reason to be agitated. Perhaps you should be agitated if you live in a country that has been occupied for 130 years. Perhaps you should question yourself if someone has been shot by your trigger. It’s Camus addressing this issue of the blind spot, the blind spot of the colonial figure, in the face of the absurdity of being in a country where most people are indigenous, and yet it’s not their country. Most people are rooted in this country, and yet they’re treated like foreigners, like outsiders in their own country. For me, it’s also a very touching book, because my father was a strange synthesis of both the indigenous person that got shot on the beach and Meursault himself. Why? Because my father was among those people that was very quiet, who didn’t complain, who would never moan about his life, and could come across like him, as detached and floating, somehow. That always interests me about the human condition. To some extent, we are all the Meursault of another in the face of the absurd."

"After closing Camus's The Stranger, I descended a changed young man."

""The Stranger," by Albert Camus."

"I can't say why I waited so long to read them, but I'm glad I've read them now at this time in my life."