Why Life Is Absurd

In the 1870s, Leo Tolstoy became depressed about life’s futility. He had it all but so what?
In “My Confession,” he wrote: “Sooner or later there will come diseases and death (they had come already) to my dear ones and to me, and there would be nothing left but stench and worms. All my affairs, no matter what they might be, would sooner or later be forgotten, and I myself should not exist. So why should I worry about these things?”
 Life’s brevity bothered Tolstoy so much that he resolved to adopt religious faith to connect to the infinite afterlife, even though he considered religious belief “irrational” and “monstrous.”
Was Tolstoy right? Is life so short as to make a mockery of people and their purposes and to render human life absurd?