Sisyphus, the King of Corinth, had a habit of tricking the gods. The gods got sick of this after a while and decided to end his whole career.
The gods condemned Sisyphus to push a massive boulder up a steep hill. Every time Sisyphus neared the top, the boulder would roll back down to the bottom, forcing him to start the task all over again. This endless cycle of futile labor became a symbol of eternal struggle.
Albert Camus concludes his 1942 essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, with the now iconic line:
“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Ah yes, Sisyphus is happy…hmm…yes indeed….*scratches chin intellectually*
But wait. Why? Why is Sisyphus happy?
Isn’t it weird to imagine Sisyphus happy when his accursed circumstances are still exactly the same? It even sounds a bit delulu, no?
You see, the original Sisyphus story has a subtle code baked into its narrative:
We are expected to take for granted that Sisyphus is a broken being because he must roll the boulder up for eternity. There seems to be no real option but for us to see the story from the “gods’ eye” point of view i.e. Gods punished Sisyphus. Sisyphus is eternally miserable. The End.
But what if there was a different point of view?
What if…on his way down the hill everyday, relieved of the rock for awhile, Sisyphus feels a rapturous sense of freedom like no other human ever had or ever will? Let’s say, everyday there is a serene downhill stroll to look forward to. Perhaps the post-uphill walk is so beautiful that, over time, Sisyphus begins to look forward to the climb since the struggle of the climb is what enables the calm of the descent.
Or another point of view:
What if…Sisyphus is able to adapt to his struggle of pushing his stone so well that it becomes an automatic process? Lets say, his mind is free to enter a contemplative trance of admiring “each atom of [the] stone, each mineral flake of [the] mountain…” Routine turns not into boredom but into adaptation, and his physical existence becomes so automated that his mind becomes unfettered.
And my favorite point of view:
What if…Sisyphus - that old trickster - has one last trick up his sleeve? Let’s say, he rebels against his own divine punishment by accepting his fate, and through this amor fati (love of fate) he plays the ultimate trick on the gods: he turns their punishment into play and purpose. He “negates the gods and raises rocks”.
Now, here’s the code-breaker to reassess both the Sisyphus story as well as the story of our existential condition. We, like Sisyphus, are not bound to the divine “gods’ eye” narrative. Just like Sisyphus is able to flip the script and empower himself by saying a resounding “yes” to his fate, we too have it in us to flip the script on the existential condition.
Although we cannot control the absurdity and suffering inherent in being mortal creatures floating on a rock in infinite space, we can calibrate our attitude towards this fact. Paraphrasing something a follower once said:
“Its my time with these atoms, let’s f**king gooooooo!”
Just as the relative smallness of the microcosmic world is not proof of our greatness, the relative vastness of outer space is not proof of our insignificance. The stories we tell ourselves matter, and in a world where we have demystified the gods, we may be tempted to convince ourselves we are ‘nothing’ via pessimistic nihilism or that we are ‘everything’ via overcompensatory egoism. Or we can flip the script and learn to bear the responsibility of existential awareness on our shoulders with balance and grace.
We must learn to see ourselves as worthy co-authors of the existential narrative we find ourselves in, not unwilling footnotes to it. We can learn to stand between these infinite worlds, balancing the boulder of awareness, and choose to say a conscious “yes” to reality, despite its absurdity, despite everything it throws at us.
In this way, when we rebel against the narrative that our circumstances must dictate our attitude towards life, we look back at the vengeful gods and say “Joke’s on you.” We then get to choose what breaks or fills our hearts. We get to imagine Sisyphus happy.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But 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.
- Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
❤️
Explained so beautiful using simple language ❤️