A journey has to be completed and, no matter what romantics say, the finishing line decides destiny. Ironical, though it may be we compete with even the ones closest to us.
In this unending perennial race of existence and in our desperate attempt to prove Darwinian survival of the fittest philosophy, we refuse to slacken our pace, or maybe we cannot. If we accept this as the desired way of life with the rejection of Camus’ Meursault, then we may as well judge its virtues objectively and face it with fortitude to be able to win. Even though cynics or romantics (whichever way you see it) may tell you that you still remain a mangy rat of the rat race, what is the harm in being the winning rat?
The greatest hurdle of a winner it is said is easy victories as it brings forth along with the black pestilence of complacency which pushes anyone, no matter how great, to the brink of disaster and sometimes even over the edge. Bertrand Russell had written in his book The Conquest Of Happiness…
"The human animal like others is adapted to certain amount of struggle for life and when by means of great wealth homo sapiens can gratify all whims without effort, the mere absence of effort from life removes an essential ingredient of happiness."
We could easily add to it and say that this absence or lack of effort, when one gets what he wants heralds doom as it leads to incompetency and vanity which are merely escorts to the gate of ultimate downfall.
Life is not always a bed of roses and thankfully so, because if we did not have the thorns we would not have appreciated the petals. We would be ingenuous enough to take things for granted, for complacency is not always a venial crime. If you are born with a golden spoon in your mouth or you inherit one, it usually breaks a man. It makes you forget who you are and then you want to be far from the “madding crowd”, but we forget, that it usually is the society that decides our destiny, it is the society who makes or breaks a man. As, Camus said, if you do not play the game by their rules you are an outsider and its disastrous, you are condemned with blasphemy.
As, the sun rides low on the horizon, it is ultimately the extraneous challenges of life that grants us the masks to survive, the necessary skills to steer clear of the infinite abyss of disaster. “We have the knack of choosing precisely those that are worst for us.” said Albus Dumbledore and we see the curse of complete fulfillment of every desire is something we all wish for but should avoid like a contagious disease, after all it is the final undoing of any man…his Achilles’ heel.
But the question remains, whether you play by their rules or yours...
What do you choose dear reader Meursault or society?
