Life really is absurd. Good things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people.
So much of modern life is built around this one idea that we’re supposed to perfect ourselves.
Eat right. Exercise. Lower your blood pressure. Manage your cholesterol. Meditate every day, but not too much. Get the right amount of sleep. Drink enough water. Avoid toxins. It’s like we’ve replaced the priest from yesteryear with the doctor. The old religious command to be good is now be healthy, be well, be responsible, be measured.
But you know what’s never included?
Be radical. Be passionate. Be free. Revolt.
Albert Camus, the Algerian philosopher, wrote The Myth of Sisyphus, where Sisyphus is a figure from Greek mythology who was punished by the gods to push a giant boulder up a hill, only for it to roll back down every time he reached the top.
Albert Camus reimagined him as a symbol of human life. Even though the task is endless and absurd, we can still find meaning and joy in the struggle itself, and he flips this whole idea on its head.
Camus says, life doesn’t owe you meaning. In fact, life doesn’t owe you anything. The world’s indifferent. There’s no grand plan, no promise that if you do it right, you’ll be rewarded.
And yet, instead of despair, he calls us to live with passion, revolt, and freedom. Not just live longer, live more. But the culture we live in, it’s obsessed with playing it safe. And it says, don’t drink too much. Don’t eat too much. Avoid risk. Avoid excess. Avoid chaos. Be a good patient. Be a good citizen. Be a good body. Be a good employee. But where’s the invitation to be wild, burning, imperfect human being?
Here’s what I want to ask you today. What rules are you following, just because you think you’re supposed to, or maybe you’ve been conditioned to? How much of your energy goes in trying to be good instead of free? If you knew that you were going to die in a year, what rules would you finally stop following?
Because as Camus puts it, we’re all Sisyphus.
We’re all pushing that boulder up the hill every day. The world doesn’t always make sense. Rarely it does. It doesn’t always reward your effort. But still, you push. You choose your rock. You show up. And that choice, that defiance, that’s where the meaning is born.
That is where real mindfulness is. It’s not another item on your to-do list. It’s not another way to optimize. It’s a way of saying, I’m here. I’m alive. This moment doesn’t have to make sense for me to love it. You don’t have to optimize your body to justify your existence. You don’t owe the world a perfect life. You don’t need to follow every health should to be worthy. You’re more than a machine to be maintained. You’re a wild, absurd, beautiful flame.
And the only thing you owe is to burn while you’re here. Let me ask you something.
What’s your boulder?
Because every day, we’re all pushing something uphill. Maybe for you, it’s the mortgage. The endless cycle of bills, repayments, interest rates, chasing that promise of security. Maybe it’s being the good employee, giving the best years of your life to a company that would replace you in a week.
Or maybe it’s waking up every day with that quiet ache, that whisper inside. I want to be free, but I don’t know what that looks like anymore. But here’s the thing no one tells you.
You’re allowed to choose your rock. Nobody ever said you have to carry the mortgage just because they told you that’s what security looks like. Nobody ever said you have to climb the career ladder just because that’s what success is supposed to be. You don’t have to stay small, tired, trapped just because someone handed you a map that said this was the right way.
What if the life you’re pushing for isn’t even the life you truly want?
And I want to ask you something deeper. How would this shape your desire for long term travel?
If you stop pushing someone else’s rock, what new path would open up for you?
What fears would open up?
What beliefs would you need to let go of to make space for the life you actually want?
And what fears would you be willing to bring with you, not waiting to overcome them first, but allowing them to ride beside you while you go anyway? Because here’s the truth.
You don’t have to wait until you feel fearless.
You don’t have to wait until it’s safe or approved or guaranteed or you have the answer. You can let the fear ride shotgun. You can let the uncertainty come along for the ride, but you don’t have to let them drive.
And you know Camus said something that stayed with me.
He said the only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion.
What if your choice to pursue a freer life, to downsize, to leave the rat race, to travel more simply, more mindfully, wasn’t selfish or reckless, but an act of rebellion, a quiet, courageous rebellion against a world that wants you compliant, small, afraid, obedient.
A rebellion that says, I don’t owe you my conformity. I don’t owe you a life spent paying bills until I die.
I choose freedom.
So let me ask you again, what rock would you put down? What rules would you stop following?
What fears would you let Swalk beside you while you keep moving forward?
Because maybe the freedom you’re longing for isn’t waiting at the top of a hill. Maybe it’s waiting the moment you stop pushing someone else’s boulder and start walking your own path.
You don’t owe the world a perfect, optimised, well-behaved life. You don’t have to keep pushing just because you were told to. You’re allowed to choose differently. You’re allowed to dream differently. You’re allowed to live wildly, imperfectly, rebelliously, because you’re more than a machine to be maintained. You’re more than a cog in the system.
You’re a flame and you’re here to burn.
I’d love to walk this journey with you.
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