Camus famously said that the only serious philosophical question is that of suicide. My impression is that some people see existentialism and the absurdist core of it as an almost nihilistic outlook on life, but I don't agree. Accepting that life is absurd, built on chance and completely lacks reason has for me been the only secular help to accept the random winds of fate that knocks your life over every now and then.

One of Camus best texts in my opinion, not only because of the beliefs expressed but only because of it's welcome brevity and concrete language compared to some other philosophers, is "The Myth of Sisyphus". Instead of painting Sisyphus as a suffering prisoner, he paints him as an absurdist hero with ideals that every human should aspire to.

Like the obsessive cleaning of surfaces in "Jiro Dreams of Sushi", Camus states that "we must imagine Sisyphus happy": the struggle in itself is the meaning. And to my understanding, there's the core of existentialist belief: lacking any God-given, external purpose, we must accept our absurd position, and our individual responsibility to push our stones up the hill, and find happiness doing it.

"Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself, forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."