#YOLO

A cultural motto has been running around the last months all over the world thanks to social networks. You only live once also abbreviated as YOLO is used to express carpe diem feelings of accomplishing your dreams, because actually you only live once. It is the modern existentialist motto. Now days young adults are expected to succeed in life and be the best at what they do. Even though YOLO evolved as a childish way of forgiving every stupid action you do, it is pretty clear that adolescents are bored of societal expectations. They are fighting for some existentialist meanings in life, which gives them the opportunity to be free and do whatever they feel like no government, family, school or friends pressuring them.
 
     The death of a parent should be one of the climaxes of a person’s life. We could, prior to reading the whole book believe that the story is going to narrate Mersault’s life before the death of his mother, how this event changed his life and the future without his loved one. Those inferences would be wrong. But then why did Camus start the novel that way, if it was not a marking point for the main character? Being this an existentialist novel, things really do not matter, they simply happen. Most existentialist emphasize that the present is the only truth. There is really no need for the readers to be set in a setting; you will read this novel because it is your free will and the present gives you the opportunity. So Camus therefore exposes you to Mersalut’s life in the present, what has just happened. Some people might take death as a huge event; others just see it as one more day.

“And just then it crossed my mind that one might fire, or not fire—and it would come to absolutely the same thing” (PG. 37)

Mersault’s life is flashing before his eyes, right before a confrontation with some Arabs. When a non existentialist would quote something like “when your life flashes in front of your eyes, make sure it is worth watching”, Camus replaces it with “when life flashes in front of your eyes, it is just another day”. That is finally why Camus starts the novel where he chooses to, because simply it is just another day.