I have no ambition.
Okay, so yeah, it’d be great to wake up tomorrow, and life is the most important thing to me, but live every day like ‘If this was last day on earth, would I be glad I did this thing I’m about to do?’ And if it did end tomorrow (or even later in the day), ‘Would I be okay with what my life was?’. If I do die tomorrow, or later on, okay.
And goals are the same. I have a few goals, like (I guess) wanting to eventually teach philosophy at university, and to maybe see what the hell North Korea is like, or to teach English to Syrian refugees either here or on the Lebanese-Syrian border, but they’re tentative at best. And if they don’t happen, I’m good (see the above paragraph for why).
Would Albert Camus say goals are absurd?
What are goals? Are they not the thing you aim for before you go for your next goal? And then your next? And then your next? At what point are you enjoying possibly the only real moment that exists, as opposed to the one that never does (the future)?
It’s possible Camus would say goals are an attempt to shape the world to your own objectives, to control nature, and anything but opening ‘yourself up to the benign indifference of the universe.’
The universe doesn’t give a shit about you. It does what it wishes. Natural disasters, the weather, it couldn’t give a rats tossbag whether you like it or not. But neither does it care about anyone else.
So not only is this all the more reason to realise that you are just part of nature, it also shows that you have no control over it.
And aspiring for goals, and more goals, and then another goal, and another goal after that, and then 6 more goals, and then another goal, until:
(ie. you = dead), in Camus’ eyes may be attempting to achieve Godliness –to control nature. And that no matter what the universe does, and even though you are mortal, you can reach immortality.
But time runs out. And if you’re always spending this moment, and this one, and this one (and so on) chasing goals when are you ever actually just present in the moment?