We should imagine Sysyphus smiling.
So there’s a whole essay called "On the Myth of Sysyphus" but to keep it brief, Sysyphus was a normal Greek dude who just chilled and then one day Hades shows up to his house and is like "Hey bro, times up. You’re gonna have to come with me!". Well, Sysyphus, being the clever man he is, convinced Hades to hangout at his crib, and also to kinda chain himself up. So feeling accomplished, Sysyphus went about his day, not dying. And 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 castles were kinda just dusting themelves off. Of course the Gods noticed this so they went to Sysyphus 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 Sysyphus 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. That 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.
