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When the full truth and weight of the absurd hits a person, the result can be dramatic. A person might stand against the wall and wail, like H.G. Wells' frustrated utopian expectations giving way to defeatist whimpers at the end of his life in Mind at the End of its Tether. Or a man might throw a tantrum and flail away at the silent oak tree universe, like I hear William Faulkner used to do–get drunk, stagger into his backyard, and shake his fist and curse at the heavens. Or a person might sit in a café someplace and snarl at everything and everyone, like existentialists in the 1950s who read Camus' novels and adopted a despairing, estranged, nihilist attitude toward a meaningless world.

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