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The absurdity in Monty Python comedy sketches seem like a philosophical cousin to Albert Camus.
Likewise, Camus is like a distant relative of Buddha. Buddhism asks the individual to cease striving and desiring everything and anything -- including enlightenment itself. Life is suffering, says the Buddha, a concept that clearly reflects the punishment of Sisyphus. The root cause of suffering is not in the punishment, though, it is the desire to be set free or the desire to know why the punishment was meted. Elimination of the "uselessness of suffering," as Camus puts it, is the elimination of the desire for meaning. Camus would note that Buddhism is the religion of the absurd, or a religion that acknowledges the absurd and attempts to ironically pierce through it or overcome it. With a Buddhist outlook, Sisyphus simply rolls the rock up the hill more consciously.
When the meaning of life is nothingness, or absurdity, then one can become liberated in a sort of humorous outlook....
Humor is a liberating force, emotionally and psychologically. Hunting and pecking for meaning in this universe is like searching for the needle in the haystack, if there was one there to begin with. One of the greatest mysteries in life is why people bother trying, and why people feel so uncomfortable with the fact of not knowing something. God is an intellectual copout in this worldview, because it simply assuages the discomfort of not knowing what the meaning of life actually is.
Camus' philosophy is quintessentially postmodern in that there does not need to be any concrete evidence for anything. Like a Buddhist, Camus just starts to accept life on life's terms. In "Absolute Freedom," he subsequently states, "I can refute everything in this world surrounding me that offends or enraptures me, except this chaos, this sovereign chance and this divine equivalence which springs from anarchy," (51).
Reference
Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. Vintage, 1983.
Reference
Camus, Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. Vintage, 1983.
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