"It doesn't matter" or does it?

One of the largest points that Camus tries to get across is the idea of neutrality and meaningless. Meursault's character is the definition of this point. At face value we see this as being the main point of the article. The argument that “Nothing, nothing mattered and I knew why”. Meursault knows that his life is going to end no matter what. He makes the argument that society will go on just the same as it always has which means individual life has no meaning.

“But everybody knows life isn’t worth living. Deep down I knew perfectly well that it doesn’t much matter whether you die at thirty or at seventy, since in either case other men and women will naturally go on living – and for thousands of years. Whether it was now or twenty years from now, I would still be one dying.”

It obvious that on the Meursault is indifferent to the time of his death. I always figured him as one of the people that when asked the question “Do you want to know the exact time of death?” he would answer “I guess, but it doesn’t matter”. The information wouldn’t matter at all to Meursault because he knows it would come anyway. I think we are all a little disturbed by his indifference and neutrality. Having individual thoughts and opinions is part of human nature.  When we see Meursault thinking about his own life we feel uncomfortable that he doesn’t care to preserve it. Or at least that’s what we think at first.

I may be reading a little too far into the book but I like having some sort of logical reason for everything. I like to impose a little more logic that “it just happened” or “it doesn’t matter”. When I read the passage above my attention was drawn to the one right below it.

“At that point, what would disturb my train of thought was the terrifying leap I would feel my heart take at the idea of having twenty more years of life ahead of me. But I simply had to stifle it by imagining what I’d be thinking in twenty years when it would all come down to the same thing anyway”

In the first line we see Meursault have a small realization that his life could have been so much more productive and eventful if he wasn’t in this situation. But then right after this realization he “stifles it”. My panel presentation in class talked about alexithymia, I don’t want to dive into it too much, but the gist of it was Meursault stores all his feelings and emotions behind a wall of no emotion. I think this part where he finally realizes his life could have amounted to something but then “stifles" that thought is a good example of some of those subconscious feelings trying to break through and manifest themselves.

I just don’t like the argument of “nothing matters” and I would rather have some sort of reason to justify all of Meursault’s actions. At the same time that I wish for a reason, I understand that it sort of defeats the entire purpose of the novel.