Seven Sol
Seven Sol
Aug 8, 2017 · 1 min read

We should imagine Sisyphus smiling.

So there's a whole essay called "The Myth of Sisyphus" by Camus, but to keep it brief, Sisyphus was a normal Greek dude who just chilled and then one day Hades shows up to his house and is all like, "Hey bro, times up. You're gonna have to come with me!". Well, Sisyphus, being the clever man he is, convinced Hades to hangout at his crib and also to kinda to chain himself up. Feeling accomplished, Sisyphus went about his day, not dying. Weeellll, Hades being the God of Death and all, people kinda... stopped dying. So people were being trampled by horses at war and coming home for dinner; people falling from towers kinda just dusted themelves off. Of course the Gods noticed this so they went to Sisyphus and are like " yo dude come on that's not cool" so they punished him to an eternity of rolling a boulder up a hill, just for it to roll off the other side and him having to do it again, forever.

Camus's take, is that we should imagine Sisyphus smiling. Many people feel that existential dread of life. You know the one that life is this painful struggle to the top, just to feel unaccomplished or that something goes wrong and destroys your dreams or such. This is the absurdity of life. It doesn't make sense. Camus believed that, indeed, nothing in life matters, but our struggle, our life, the absurd nonsense is, if anything, amusing

and we should smile.