[firasd]

His Sisyphus essay is famous for its closing line but I find it interesting how for several pages it closes with a thump, thump, thump and metaphor fusion (the essay is ending, the rock is rolling, the gods are watching, the choice is being made...) Even the second-last line is underrated:

"There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn. [...] His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. [...] The absurd man says yes and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. [...] The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

[chistev]

1. "we build our life on the hope for tomorrow, yet tomorrow brings us closer to death and is the ultimate enemy; people live their lives as if they were not aware of the certainty of death."

2. "The workman of today works every day in his life at the same tasks, and this fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious."

3. "It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end."

4. "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."

Shared my thoughts on the myth in my blog post below if interested.

https://www.rxjourney.net/one-must-imagine-sisyphus-happy

Edit:I don't think the second last line is underrated.

[otekengineering]

> One must imagine Sisyphus happy

Notice that Camus doesn't say HOW to imagine Sisyphus happy. How do you?

I imagine that he's happy because he takes pride in the quality of his work pushing the stone.

[mkovach]

> Notice that Camus doesn't say HOW to imagine Sisyphus happy. How do you?

The gods controlled the ascent, but they forgot to regulate the walk back down. In those brief, unburdened minutes descending the slope, Sisyphus is completely outside their authority.

You can imagine him however you like, laughing at the absurdity of it, studying the mountain, or simply enjoying the breeze. It almost doesn't matter. The walk down belongs to him.

The gods imposed the sentence. Sisyphus decides what it means.

This is Camus' idea of the universe and how to rebel against it by owning and enjoying the small freedoms.

Personally, I believe how you see Sisyphus happy reflects how YOU would enjoy your small freedoms, and this shows how Camus often wanted people to do philosophy on their own.

[otekengineering]

Yeah, it's a question with a personal answer, not an absolute answer. My answer works for me, for now, and I enjoy learning what answers work for other people.

I wonder if Camus had his own answer to that question. Could Camus imagine Sisyphus happy?

I don't think rebellion or ownership are enough. Rebellion is meaningless when you're alone with nothing to rebel against, and ownership is not inherently positive.

Gods not regulating the decent is an interesting take. Can one learn to smile while falling?

[Smilliam]

> Can one learn to smile while falling?

I've never seen an unhappy astronaut on the ISS :P

fwiw, I largely agree with mkovach's interpretation because of the direct analogy to modern work culture. But I do admire your view as well, I get a lot of satisfaction from deep cleaning and maintaining things, and there's a commensurate amount of pride watching the item transform back into something clean again.

[firasd]

I don't know if Camus and/or people who're very familiar with his essay would approve but maybe the Pixar movie Soul (2020) has something similar to what he was gesturing at. The protagonist finally gets a big break as a performer and says: "It's just I've been waiting on this day for... my entire life. I thought I'd feel different." The woman replies: "I heard this story about a fish. He swims up to this older fish and says, 'I'm trying to find this thing they call the ocean.' 'The ocean?' says the older fish. 'That's what you're in right now.' 'This?' says the young fish. 'This is water. What I want is the ocean.'"

Basically embracing life with full knowledge that there isn't some final transcendent epiphany or rapturous endpoint

[maleldil]

Regarding the water thing, David Foster Wallace once said this:

There are these two young fish swimming along and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says “Morning, boys. How’s the water?” And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes “What the hell is water?”

[steve_adams_86]

It's so strange in that I recognize that I'm in the ocean and by all means, this is pretty incredible, even when it's not. It's so strange and amazing to be anything at all.

And yet the homonculus presses me forward and I want this, need that, think about this, touch that, stare at those, wonder, get frustrated, click my teeth and tap my desk, build this, build that, not good enough, start over...

I'm well aware that meditation and just calming the fuck down now and then are salves for the insanity, it's just wholly and completely weird that I can be aware of these things and still, reliably, also something resembling crazy.

[estearum]

The hedonic treadmill turns even when you know you're on it

[sigbottle]

I don't directly interpret Camus, but I think to my interpretation of Dostoevsky's underground man. He knows he's irrational, can "rationally prove" he's irrational, yet still lives on anyways.

There's a sort of pride in fully knowing, accepting, and disengaging with some rational proof, and still "living your life anyways". In some sense, even though that might be irrational, it's one of the deepest forms of satisfaction.

[sroussey]

And this explains a lot of politics these days…

[sigbottle]

I personally think that this kind of behavior is necessary, unavoidable, and actually good for society, precisely because no one has access to this thing called "rationality", if it even exists. The alternative is variants of authoritarian nightmares where one can't even begin to speak in opposition, because of course they're not rational.

But you're right, it can also be easily used to justify horrible things. And in this case, you can still lead to authoritarian nightmares, or worse.

Maybe bad people are bad, and no matter what philosophy you adopt, one can twist it to be bad.

[oliculipolicula]

As a sort of dessert to that main course, one could imagine Camus happy. (For example, while playing Aunt Agony.) Or appetizer.

Personally, this helped https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2023/03/14/camuss-new-yo...

https://archive.ph/JEuoa

>Forty-­eight hours of pleasant euphoria

Such an epicure? So Epicurean?

(As well as the rest of the diary)

[tremon]

> Camus doesn't say HOW to imagine Sisyphus happy

Huh? Do you mean that in a literal sense, that Camus doesn't give instructions on how imagination works? To me, the quote certainly does explain how Sisyphus could be happy:

His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing [..] The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart

[otekengineering]

If you were in Sisyphus' shoes, could you be happy under those terms?

Struggle alone doesn't do it for me personally, but taking pride in how well I struggle does.

[ynac]

Sisyphus was a stone carver. I use that idea in my game Bouldering. The joy of wearing out these stones until they are small enough to carry in a pouch - the size of marbles. Only to be given another boulder. For free. And, he gets to live forever! Meh. There are worse fates in the myths.

[onesandofgrain]

He did mention a thing or two about coffee heheheh

[ignoramous]

> One must imagine Sisyphus happy

I have my disagreements with Absurdism, but still, Gavin Aung Than's comic on Bill Watterson's "A Cartoonist's Advice" adds to perspective on what it might mean to forever push boulder up hill & yet manifest happiness: https://www.zenpencils.com/comic/128-bill-watterson-a-cartoo... / https://archive.vn/a34Bx

[d4ng]

What are your disagreements with Absurdism?

[altmanaltman]

I still don't understand how that metaphor works when Sisyphus' entire existence had meaning in the sense that god had basically cursed him to continue doing it regardless of what he wants (in the actual myth Camus references).

But that is kind of weird because it doesn't really mean what Sisyphus is doing is absurd or meaningless (it follows the perfectly valid logic that gods had put a spell on him, and he must do this continously so its not absurd compared to the question of our existence).

He frames the lack of answer by the universe as "unreasonable" but is it really? Thomas Nagel's paper on this is interesting imo: https://philosophy.as.uky.edu/sites/default/files/The%20Absu...

[kelvinjps10]

The Meaningless and absurdity part comes from doing the same thing over and over, and it’s done as a punishment and not to serve a grand purpose.

You can see something similar on humans with myth if you can call it that where humans humans must work after the sin of Adam and eve

[altmanaltman]

I think you should read the paper I shared since it explains the prespective much better.

[kelvinjps10]

I will, thanks