There is a crucial difference between recognizing a difficult truth and surrendering to it. Camus insists that the absurd, that tension between our desire for meaning and the universe’s silence, only holds its power when we refuse to collapse into acceptance. The moment we shrug and say “nothing matters,” we have not embraced the absurd. We have killed it. We have replaced a living confrontation with a dead resignation.

Think of it this way: a person who sees injustice at work and simply says “that’s just how things are” has not gained wisdom. They have abandoned the very awareness that made them see the problem in the first place. The insight only has value if it fuels a response, if it keeps you alert and engaged rather than passive and defeated.

This is one of the most misunderstood aspects of Camus’s philosophy. People often read him as a prophet of meaninglessness, when in fact he was the opposite. He believed that meaning is created precisely in the act of refusal, in the ongoing tension between what we want from life and what life offers. To agree to the absurd, to accept it quietly, is to lose both the struggle and the clarity it provides. The confrontation is the point. Stay in it.