A famous Greek myth, illustrated by Camus, depicts a cursed being named Sisyphus rolling his boulder up to the top of a summit, only for it to plummet to the bottom again, where the cycle resets. Yet we don’t need to have our existential fancy-pants on whilst lighting a cigar to appreciate how each of us have our own Sisyphean stone to push.
The stone represents the glaring absurdity of the fact of life itself; the burning and toiling that you undergo throughout the course of your existence does not somehow conclude with a celebratory event like your graduation ceremony with welcome signs reading, “You did it!”. Instead, all of your accomplishments, your resume, your friends, will blow away in the dust.
Although we could consider this the ultimate absurdity, that of human life in general, there are ones lurking in the very moments of our day-to-day life, which can be either the cause of distress, or empowerment.
You’re working on improving your health, eating well, catching some extra sleep, and so on, and your body protests and rejects your hardest work with one fell-swoop – perhaps thanks to some illness, or emotional distress. You are working diligently on what you think is a brilliant idea for your boss, s/he examines it for a moment, scoffs, and pretends you don’t exist. You try to open up your formerly tender heart to a new lover, and they demolish you for the risk you took. You happily proclaim that you are riding your bike to work to reduce emissions, despite its inconvenience, but China acquires more coal-powered energy…
Upon reality contradicting your will, your perseverance, in such a mundane but truly arbitrary fashion, the first reaction is often decided angst. This is where the existentialist sits in their cafe sobbing and realizing that they are like Sisyphus, no matter how intelligent, beautiful, popular, or powerful they are.
This is however certainly not the end. While it is possible for us to pound our fist on the stone that we must hurl to the bottom and roll back up again, we might wish to seek empowerment through the absurdity of these day-to-day events.
There is a famous Latin expression known as amor fati, which means love of one’s fate or life. You don’t have to be a believer in a mystical thing like fate to appreciate the use of this though. If you can imagine the universe reproducing our lives, exactly the way they are right now, again, and again, do you wish to be breaking the bones in your fist against the Sisyphean stone thanks to the absurdities of life? Or perhaps you might collect your emotion and realize that this is going to be a long journey. Perhaps the only thing that makes sense here is to love your contradictory burden and feed off of it, so as to overcome the contempt that only adds to the weight of the stone.
That was an amazing read, keep it up!
Well, I am not sure how or why I didn’t see this until now, but this is genius. ”Perhaps the only thing that makes sense here is to love your contradictory burden and feed off of it, so as to overcome the contempt ”
I am hoping you can eventually expand on this, I am stoked for the next lines you’re going to publish! keep up the awesome out-of-the-box thinking, Dave
Hi Dave, It’s Rob from work, this article made me have a small epiphany and I thank you for this!
Some of the best articles I’ve read. Keep them coming!
excellent. means a lot reading this.