Don’t go down the rabbit hole, Alice!
“Into the darkness they go, the wise and the lovely.”- Edna St.Vincent Millay
Albert Camus published an essay in 1942 called ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’. Influenced from Greek mythology, Camus recalls the story of Sisyphus, who after death was sentenced by Zeus to punishment. He was told to push a bolder up a hill. Once atop, the boulder rolled down, and Sisyphus was cursed to turn around, and push it back up again, until eternity. Thus, tormenting Sisyphus to perform a futile task over, and over again.
Every intense attempt by Sisyphus to push the boulder up the hill led to the rock rolling back down again. Realizing that his efforts led to no fruitful outcome, melancholy set in the heart of Sisyphus.
Condemned by the Gods to endlessly push up a boulder just to see it roll down again, until eternity, made Sisyphus question the absurdity of his existence. ‘What is the purpose of my life?’, he thought, ‘If all I have to do is to perform a futile task over and over again, what is the point of existence?’ What is the point of living if existence itself is pointless? And what is the goal of life if the metaphorical carrot dangling in front of me moves further out as soon as I try to inch closer to it?
One can imagine the pain, the existential dread, of Sisyphus. So does Sisyphus continue to dread his existence and perform his futile task with the weight of a million tons of existential dread on his shoulders? Camus explained that it is not the recurrent, futile task itself, but Sisyphus’ consciousness of the recurrency of his pointless curse that caused his suffering. It is THIS consciousness of his own pointless fate that makes the myth tragic. It is this consciousness that constitutes to his eternal torture.
Consciousness forms the core of the human enterprise. We are born with the exceptional ability to question our actions, our motives, our goals. Most of us live through existence with a purpose, and many a times this purpose is provided by society, religion, and culture. This purpose forms the core of our existence. One might say, ‘My sole purpose is to fulfill my hedonistic desires to eat, and love’. Someone else would say, ‘My sole purpose is to provide comfort for my loved ones’. Most of us have our metaphorical dangling carrot that we run after.
Then there are some of us that cursed to use their consciousness to question their purpose. ‘Why. What’s even the point?’. The human enterprise has distinct start and end results. Every living being has to ultimately die. What’s even the point of everything that lies in-between birth and death. What’s the point of rolling up this boulder to existence up the hill, if death ensures all of one’s efforts are fruitless after one dies?
This- is where an individual finds juxtaposition between himself and his life with Sisyphus and his boulder. ‘What is the point of this human endeavor? Why should I keep pushing my boulder up the hill if all the effort results in despair’. This is where the human consciousness leads to existential dread. And this.. is where the rabbit hole starts. Once an individual jumps into it, he goes deeper, and deeper into the absurdity of existence.
John Green, New York Times bestselling author, puts it perfectly,
When my mind starts playing What’s Even the Point, I can’t find a point to making art — which is just using the finite resources of our planet to decorate, and I can’t find a point to planting gardens, which is just inefficiently creating food that will sustain our useless vessels for a little while longer, and I can’t find a point to falling in love — which is just a desperate attempt to stave off the loneliness that you can never really solve for, because you are always alone in what Robert Penn Warren called, “the darkness, which is you.”- John Green
It is funny how people just watch existentialists live in despair and laugh about it. Others just look at them and say, ‘Why don’t you just live your life and just not think about any of this’. Or best of all, someone could look at your existential dread and claim that it is those philosophy books in your house that are causing it all. Tragically funny...tragically.
“Man stands face to face with the irrational. He feels within him his longing for happiness and for reason. The absurd is born of this confrontation between the human need and the unreasonable silence of the world.”
― Albert Camus
Like Sisyphus, existentialists desire to be happy. They want to love what there is to love. They want to feel what there is to feel. And they want to enjoy what there is to enjoy. Existentialists, like everyone else, want the same virtuous pleasures in life. The burden of existential dread, however, overpowers us.
The worst part about existential dread, if we take Sisyphus as an exemplar, is not that fact that he was cursed, it is that he was CONSCIOUS that he was cursed. Conscious of the absurdity of existence, and conscious of the futility of any of his actions. Sisyphus gazed into the abyss trying to find a meaning for existence, and that is where he found his demons
“Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster… for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also into you.”― Friedrich Nietzsche
An existentialist gazes into the abyss, and finds depression. How do you wake up in the morning and get out of bed if you think all existence is suffering, and that all your actions in the absurd universe are going to bear zero fruits? The more one thinks on existentialism, the further down he gets pulled into the rabbit hole.
“All of Sisyphus’ silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him”- Camus
For yes, human consciousness can be a curse, but the same consciousness that torments us through this absurd existence also empowers us to not only accept our own fate, but to also consider it sacred, and live by it. But this school of thought has its flaws and needs to be dealt with extreme caution.
Philosophical exploration is a risky affair. There is a lot to be lost, and the possibility that you gain something worthwhile that will increase your joy of living is low. Several existentialists, including Camus, charted out pathways through this rabbit hole, and I’ll try my best to highlight them at a later time, but this maze is too intricate and there is too much at stake. Don’t risk it. Don’t dive into existentialism. Run away from it as much as you can, or you’ll end up with existential angst and depression, like several of us. Don’t gaze into the abyss.
Don’t jump down the rabbit hole, Alice. Don’t!
