>>7097282>>7098432>>7098461Philosophy major here (read: future McDonalds employee).
Camus never actually said or wrote what that popular quote says, but it does capture the essence of Camus absurdism. Absurdism is a branch of existentialism that focuses on the inherit meaninglessness of the world (not to be confused with nihilism, which focuses on the non-existence of objective values). To Camus, and indeed most of the existentialists, the universe is just a machine that lacks what we like to call "meaning"; cold causality, things just happen, God is dead etc. While Camus never called himself an existentialist nor an absurdist, Camus became the poster-child for the credo of absurdism: to defiantly look for and hold on to whatever meaning you can find in this world, ever aware that there can't be an objectively true one.
Whoever actually wrote that quote did have a pretty good grasp on the essence of much of Camus work. If there is no meaning in the objective sense, then having a cup of coffee has no greater bearing on the universe than ending your life. I interpret the quote like this: you can either give in to the dread of nihilism and lack of meaning, or you can say "fuck you" to the entire concept of objective meaning and have a cup of coffee, rebelling against the void and creating your own meaning.
tl;dr: not a Camus quote, but pretty good nonetheless, basically means: there is no objective meaning in life so choose to do what makes YOU happy.
