Happiness Is a Side Effect of Life

Ten Principles of Happiness: Albert Camus, Absurdism, Happiness and a Carousel

Albert Camus’s popularisation of absurdism offers a distinctive perspective on happiness. This ideology holds that the struggle between our search for meaning and the quiet, uncaring universe is what makes life fundamentally nonsensical. Nevertheless, Camus offers a route to happiness that goes against accepted wisdom within this apparent chaos. Fundamentally, absurdism acknowledges that while the pursuit of meaning may be pointless, it does not imply that there is no happiness or contentment in life. Absurdism encourages us to accept the absurdity and find happiness within it, as opposed to becoming depressed at the absence of an underlying meaning. It says that accepting life’s absurdity and pursuing personal fulfilment in the here and now will lead to happiness instead of seeking great, existential solutions or financial achievement. 

Camus is well known for using the metaphor of Sisyphus, who is destined to roll a boulder up a hill forever, to illustrate the human capacity for tenacity. He contends that Sisyphus’s fight against the pointlessness of his labour is what gives him delight. Through finding significance in the struggle itself, Sisyphus—and so, we—can make our own meaning in a world that doesn’t care. Briefly, happiness comes from living life to the fullest, even when life seems like pointless or repetitive. According to absurdists, happiness is about accepting absurdity with humour and resistance rather than trying to run away from it. To be happy in this ridiculous world means to embrace the impromptu and transient joys of life while acknowledging its fundamental silliness. Happiness is, thus, not a goal, but a side effect of life.

Many people have come up with their ideas of what happiness is, can be and should be. Here is the Ten Principles of Happiness originally designed as a carousel for Instagram on Adobe InDesign and Photoshop.