Camus Girl Summer

 

2025 has universally been seen as a vibe shift (maybe not culturally but across the board, people's personal lives seem a bit mental and everyone's brains have seen a chemical shift or something). The Age of Aquarius is here, everyone's perception of the world has become foggy yet clear in a different direction, chaos has ensued but colours are more beautiful and an acceptance has washed over our internal views of ourselves. Chasing real experiences, talking to strangers and saying fuck it is self care. 

They've been singing about this change in the air since the 60s.

At the start of the summer I got a copy of Camus' The Outsider (or "Stranger" depending on the translation). I've since destroyed it with notes and stains and returned to it countless times... I've had it three months. 

Just before reading I had decided that I'm an existentialist (shoot me for being pretentious I know ce la vie). As in, the phrase "some day we all die" brings me a lot of positive energy to do what I want and not care... life is absurd do what you want. As in be good to people be good to yourself, get lost in long friendships, short love, good food, get drunk, see art as the most important thing in the world, never finish a book, be late, be early, just keep running and take breaks for long conversations with wine and olives, leaving your ribs hurting and a new inside joke for next time . So long as life is warm and full of conversation and pleasure, nothing else matters.

All things considered, here's what I've been thinking about:

(I'm not saying that any of what I'm saying is to do with what Camus was saying, has anything to do with the book and also anything to do with the astrology of this moment in time. I just know, without having to explain, that its all a part of the same fog of right now. I think they call it a Zeitgeist.) 

The reasons cycles tend to repeat is the addiction to feeling understood. Nothing can ever really be understood so it is a fool's errand to obsess over it. Understanding should come from genuine caring, practice and not desperation. This is where many good things die. 

Are you "prepared to die rather than lie" ?

If "Meursault was 'the only Christ we deserve'" then who is we and what does it mean to intrinsically deserve anything and in a Western world where the church has less power over people's inner world,, who is Christ? (does it matter, who cares).

Pages with water damage have the following notes: Torrential May rain. Reading this at Clontarf Dart Station and thinking about people who don't love me back and I don't even think I love them, maybe I'm bored, no it's more than that, I don't know yet... "I asked him what the dog had done to him. He didn't reply. All he said was 'Bastard!' and 'Dirty swine!' I could see he was bent over the dog, trying to untangle something from his collar. I spoke louder. Then without turning round, he replied with a sort of repressed rage: 'He's always there'."... It's warm big fat rain that thumps against itself. Monsson shit. Sky is brightening though. Here's the dart. 

underlined: "On the wall above his bed there's a pink-and-white stucco angel, some pictures of sporting champions and two or three snap-shots of naked women. The room was dirty and he hadn't made the bed." written underneath: hopefully when I'm home I'll want to cry about people less, at least I'll be drunker. 

Don't eat lunch twice if it'll make you feel sick. This isn't meant as a metaphor, I mean...literally.

"she murmured that I was very strange, that she undoubtedly loved me for that very reason, but that one day she might find me repulsive, for the same reason."

If he's not specifically describing her sundress and her tits, you can assume the female character is an old washed up hag... naturally. 

"I hope the dogs don't bark tonight. I always think that one of them is mine" chapter ends. 

People's ability to put up with things will never not surprise me. Run girl!

"There are certain things I've never liked talking about." and sometimes it is in the very moment that that thing is happening that you decided that 'this would be one ' . A realisation that feels like you had it a step beyond your own body and it is a rare instance that a thought being had by a person happens at the exact moment that the current-time-reality relates to the thought... in real time thinking realisation and decision. 

Generally I've very little patience for neurotic, nervous, self conscious people. Or at least those who let it get in the way of life and personal freedom, and make it other people's problem. Smiling nervously and asking too many questions because being annoying is better than being wrong. Being obsessed with being wrong is good to no-one other than those trying to manipulate those less confident. Let urself be wrong, it actually doesn't matter (unless ur a surgeon obvs).

All his emotions seem to be sensations. As in, that's what they are replaced by. 

Don't let what upsets you be a way to kill time.. unless you want to. 

Meursault would love a vape. 

Wanna quit the smokes? Kill a man!

"I finally stopped being bored altogether from the moment I learned how to remember." often the more time I spend trying to remember things, the quicker I forget it i.e. people's faces and the time I've spent with them. 

To be around someone where you mutually expect nothing of each other.

"I didn't understand how the natural qualities of an ordinary man could be turned into overwhelming proof of his guilt" 

"I have never truly been able to regret anything. I was always preoccupied by what was about to happen"

I have no more notes after the underlining of the last quoted line.