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4.06 AVERAGE
4.06 AVERAGE
challenging
slow-paced
challenging
informative
fast-paced
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
Typical of 20th century French stuff, it seems to beat around a brilliant bush. I'm not sure if it's just incoherent, or my mind or reading style could be more receptive - regardless here and there he does express wonderfully what seem like the final truths of enquiry, and for that this book would be worth re-reading. I'll re-read it again when I feel more French or vague or able to think in metaphors and extended asides.
reflective
medium-paced
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
"Ogni granello di quella pietra, ogni bagliore minerale di quella montagna, ammantata di notte, formano, da soli, un mondo. Anche la lotta verso la cima basta a riempire il cuore di un uomo. Bisogna immaginare Sisifo felice."
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
"The world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for the clarity whose call echoes in the human heart. The absurd depends as much on man as on the world. For the moment it is all that links them together. It binds them one to the other as only hatred can wield two creatures together."
The titular "Myth of Sisyphus" itself is what merited five stars to this collection of essays. I've read it twice, and it is even more impactful after the first time. I wonder what wisdom I might glean upon my next re-reads. Absurdism, much like existentialism, is concerned with with the confrontation between the individual man and the incomprehensable, apparently impersonal universe. In man's search for meaning, he comes face to face with the futility of his existence, spurred by the ever-present spectre of the only knowable facet of our existence - death.
"The horror comes in reality from the mathematical aspect of the event. If time frightens us, this is because it works out the problem and the solution comes afterward." Camus writes on death anxiety. All will taste death, this much is inevitable, man is forced to march on in the 4th temporal dimension: "He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy... The revolt of the flesh is the absurd."
I fixated on death anxiety as the driver of our existence this time around, because I believe it forms the core of our existence - at least this is what I took upon my read of the novel. I might very well be biased, as death anxiety as a concept has fascinated me from my adolescence - however, the Myth of Sisyphus, and by extension absurdism as a whole, is strangely (dare I say) hopeful as a work.
We are going to die. That is the end of the matter. This is an unknowable event which brings us great tragedy. Man has turned to religion, to literature, and to philosophy to intellectualise the horror this certain unknown will bring us. Quoting Nietzsche, "we have art in order not to die of the truth." He imbibes in liquour, in consumerism, in women. He will die. This is certain. And yet... "Is one to die voluntarily or to hope in spite of everything?"
Man will die, and we live arguably meaningless existences in the face of that face. We work long hours in jobs we do not enjoy, we do not spend as much time with our loved ones, we face sorrows and great challenges. Why live at all, if we toil and all for naught? Becuase, my friends, "Unlike Eurdice, the absurd dies only when we turn away from it." The true horror of the absurd is our consciousness of it. That is its true tragedy. We may observe the absurdity, this revolt of the flesh, and turn away from it. In turning away from it, we may find joy in our existence. In our art, in our literature, in our wine.
I finish my meditation with the final quote of the Myth of Sisyphus, which always fills my heart with joy, despite the clear futility of my existence. It is safe to say that this line of enquiry has revolutionalised my thinking:
"I leave Sisyphus at the end of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. 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 towards the height is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
The titular "Myth of Sisyphus" itself is what merited five stars to this collection of essays. I've read it twice, and it is even more impactful after the first time. I wonder what wisdom I might glean upon my next re-reads. Absurdism, much like existentialism, is concerned with with the confrontation between the individual man and the incomprehensable, apparently impersonal universe. In man's search for meaning, he comes face to face with the futility of his existence, spurred by the ever-present spectre of the only knowable facet of our existence - death.
"The horror comes in reality from the mathematical aspect of the event. If time frightens us, this is because it works out the problem and the solution comes afterward." Camus writes on death anxiety. All will taste death, this much is inevitable, man is forced to march on in the 4th temporal dimension: "He belongs to time, and by the horror that seizes him, he recognizes his worst enemy... The revolt of the flesh is the absurd."
I fixated on death anxiety as the driver of our existence this time around, because I believe it forms the core of our existence - at least this is what I took upon my read of the novel. I might very well be biased, as death anxiety as a concept has fascinated me from my adolescence - however, the Myth of Sisyphus, and by extension absurdism as a whole, is strangely (dare I say) hopeful as a work.
We are going to die. That is the end of the matter. This is an unknowable event which brings us great tragedy. Man has turned to religion, to literature, and to philosophy to intellectualise the horror this certain unknown will bring us. Quoting Nietzsche, "we have art in order not to die of the truth." He imbibes in liquour, in consumerism, in women. He will die. This is certain. And yet... "Is one to die voluntarily or to hope in spite of everything?"
Man will die, and we live arguably meaningless existences in the face of that face. We work long hours in jobs we do not enjoy, we do not spend as much time with our loved ones, we face sorrows and great challenges. Why live at all, if we toil and all for naught? Becuase, my friends, "Unlike Eurdice, the absurd dies only when we turn away from it." The true horror of the absurd is our consciousness of it. That is its true tragedy. We may observe the absurdity, this revolt of the flesh, and turn away from it. In turning away from it, we may find joy in our existence. In our art, in our literature, in our wine.
I finish my meditation with the final quote of the Myth of Sisyphus, which always fills my heart with joy, despite the clear futility of my existence. It is safe to say that this line of enquiry has revolutionalised my thinking:
"I leave Sisyphus at the end of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. 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 towards the height is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
slow-paced