Camus offers here his most precise definition of the absurd, and it may surprise you. The absurd is not the world. The absurd is not you. It is the collision between the two.

Consider what happens when you demand answers that will never come. Why did this person have to die? What is the purpose of my suffering? Where is the justice in this situation? Your questions are legitimate, even necessary. They arise from something deeply human: a longing for the world to make sense, to reveal some hidden order or meaning. But the universe offers no response. It simply continues, indifferent to your need for explanation.

This is the absurd: not cosmic cruelty, but cosmic silence meeting human hope. The world is not malicious. It is simply unreasonable, operating without regard for our desire for clarity. And we cannot stop wanting that clarity. We are creatures who ask “why” by nature.

Understanding this changes everything. You are not broken for wanting meaning. The world is not evil for withholding it. The tension between these two realities is simply the condition of being human. Once you recognize this confrontation for what it is, you can stop waiting for answers and start living within the question.