Sisyphus

A Reaction to Albert Camus' ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’

I woke up today, ate breakfast, drank my coffee, bathed, got dressed, waited for a jeepney and went to school, after which, I rode another jeepney home, did whatever task I had to do, fumbled around on social media, and went to sleep. For such is the routine of my life, rinse and repeat. It was not created by my own volition, but rather, my life settled itself into these routines, these mundane tasks that I find myself doing without my consent — it happens every day and it has to happen every day. Any day that breaks these rituals are then deemed special and must be remembered.

Routines are (at least in my environment) looked upon with disaffection and disdain. The culture I find myself submerged in praises the spontaneous, the sudden, and the impulsive. Why work from 8–5 every day when you can just drop everything and take a trip somewhere new? The routine is then relegated to the dull, the boring, the workaholic, and the killjoys of the world. But contrary to this, and I’m sure that many others will agree with me, I find routine comforting, it gives me a sense of direction and structure in my life — and I suppose that this is where Sisyphus comes in.

Sisyphus was condemned by the gods of an eternity of pushing a boulder atop a hill only to watch it roll back down. Are we, in our modern society, condemned to the same fate? I suppose we are. We are thrown to an existence that we did not decide only to find ourselves living a life that we did not conceive to meet an end we cannot avoid. Does this not justify a life of spontaneity and impulse? I don’t have the answer to this question (well, not yet). All I know is that routine is in my life and routine may as well be my whole life.

But there seems to be something that those people against routine seem to miss out. Something that came to me while eating breakfast this morning — that of all the things we have no control over our lives, routine is not one of them. We can create our own routines, forge them, and tailor them to what we want. Although living a life without the monotony can also be forged and created, forging a good and meaningful routine could easily be a joy — and subsequently be like Sisyphus: finding joy in what seems to be a punishment.

In our routines we can find our most meaningful work. We can escape the tireless monotony of routines by creating something we can enjoy — a routine we can enjoy. But then again, we can think of Leo Tolstoy’s ‘Confessions’ and think ‘For what?’ But I suppose that’s a topic for another time. For now we can be like Sisyphus, seemingly condemned to an eternity of repetition but enjoying and owning whatever we’re condemned to.