The Myth of Sisyphus

Doubting Heroic Happiness

In 1942, Albert Camus wrote his influential Myth of Sisyphus, an essay pondering whether “life is or is not worth living…the fundamental question of philosophy (Camus 3).” In the pages of this treatment of the absurd and meditation on death/suicide, we are met with the mythological figure of Sisyphus, the absurd hero and clever Corinthian who bested the gods and cheated death on more than one occasion. After finally being dragged to the underworld by Mercury, he was tasked with rolling a massive boulder up a hill only to watch it roll back down—a tedious, and, perhaps for it, fitting punishment for such a daring, creative person who loved the life he lived.

My interest here is in the cope—in the passage where Sisyphus, “the master of his days,” might find contentment even in his eternal punishment by continuing on:

But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks…This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night- filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy (Ibid,123).

In an essay in which Camus both calls the mandated suffering the gods mete out empty suffering and also names Sisyphus the “proletarian of the gods (Ibid,121),” if feel this joyful suffering is closer to the Catholic perception of sanctified suffering than it is to a Marxist critique, especially if our hero’s joy is a result of self-mastery…but I digress. What really interests me is the idea that throwing yourself into your task/work, as so many of us do, is enough.

I cannot remember all the anecdotes I have heard about people diving into work to cope with loss, grief, personal strife, depression etc. Who hasn’t done this in some measure? My question is not whether this is healthy or not—the answers will be as different and varied as their utterers—but rather: is it enough, and more importantly, do we risk losing anything if we do? I have turned these questions over in my mind for years and feel no closer to a definitive answer, but I will tell you what I have tried.

I recall feeling uneasy as an adolescent, at a time when many might be wondering what life could look like down the line, when I would hear adults, meeting for the first time, lead with: “And what do you do?” And in an instant, grownups would be reduced to their job title and the salary the other adults surmised they earned. I didn’t like it. I didn’t want my whole identity to be tied to what I did to get by, especially seeing the adults around me live for weekends, gripe about the grind, regale my parents with stories of bosses’ buffoonery, and generally hate their dead end jobs. In retrospect, I woudnt’t have batted an eye, wouldn’t have winced, if the answer to “what do you do?” was painter, musician, astronaut. Looking back, the common denominator has been toil, thankless, maybe even meaningless, dull, work.

Sisyphus is a toiler. His escape/joy is a feat of mental gymnastics, turning his boulder into a world, his world; throwing overboard all memory of the past to become a master of the now, his task, his destiny, to throw himself into his work as a form of escapism. I don’t yet know if I feel sorry for him, abandoning all thoughts of another escape from death itself, abandoning all memories of his beloved Corinth, or if I think it was a necessary part of some eternal self-preservation, a control-taking even in Hades. Would I take that first step back down toward my burden or run off howling into darkness hoping to hatch a new plot? Will I find that great reward in toiling? I don’t know.

All I know is that I am surrounded by geniuses at work. Real experts hardened by the task they’ve set themselves to, and radiant for it. I see them climb the hill everyday while I stand at that top looking down at that stone, wondering how I might carry it while juggling the 101 other creative, personal, self-destructive, intellectual, and silly things I want to bring with me.

Camus, Albert. (2019). The Myth of Sisyphus (J. O’Brien, Trans.). Vintage Books.