Hello Mini Philosophers,
I met up with one of my closest friends this weekend. It’s been a long time since we met. The last time I saw him, it was frosty, and the trees were twigs. This time, I wore only a T-shirt* and the wasps were already a nuisance.
“So, what’s new?”
Barely anything. Next to nothing. A few frilly things around the edges — a fun TV show, a curious email, a good book — but nothing really that new. Eat, sleep, work, repeat. Write, film, edit, read. It goes on.
I am conscious that I am far more privileged than a lot of people. My life today is more gilded than at any time before. And yet, here I am. Struggling to make out anything remarkable from the gray hues of habit and monotony.
Camus speaks of this.
I am the hamster running in a wheel. I am Bill Murray watching a groundhog. I am Sisyphus pushing a boulder up a hill. My life is reduced to the pointless chores of the condemned. There is nothing to talk about and nothing to celebrate.
“Let’s just walk in silence, mate, because I’m spiralling into absurdity.”
But in this week’s paid Mini Philosophy interview, the brilliant Joe Folley argues that this is not what Camus speaks of. Camus is not a lost soul with a cigarette and a Gallic shrug. This is only one part — and an early, immature part — of his philosophy.
So, today, you will find my full hour’s chat with Joe and my own reflections on what he had to say.
Go well,
Jonny
*Not only a T-shirt of course.