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A review by ethab420
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
5.0
Albert Camus says there’s only one serious philosophical question: whether or not to kill yourself.
Camus claims to have an answer to nihilism. An answer to the human need for answers, and the blaring silence of the uncaring universe.
He calls it “The Absurd,” and this is how it goes.
The writhing and naive seeker finds Camus hungry for an answer, filled with hope that this handsome Frenchman has what will finally save him, but what liberation is the seeker met with? That we are to hold onto that squirming writhing feeling. The feeling that ironically brought us here in the first place, that made us crack open this esoteric book written by a brooding existential philosopher (who almost certainly wrote the entire thing while smoking a cigarette in the rain) is the first part of the answer.
What does Camus give us, simply? That to be free from that feeling is just to avoid reality. To avoid the truth. That we’re right in our intuition: there isn’t an answer. And now that we know that, we’re supposed to be free.
The first thing we can learn from this is existential, unsurprisingly. So much of the human experience is going to be punctuated with suffering and pain. And so often the answer to such things requires us to exercise our skills in perpetuation - sitting with it. And what better way to do such things? What better way to train this muscle than to hold onto the, as Camus wants us to believe, only philosophical question worth answering - whether or not to kill ourselves. Whether life is worth living and whether there’s a meaning to it all, that’s where this book starts (it’s a light read really).
The answer is easy, right? You adopt your all-encompassing belief network - the God you inherited from a great grandfather you don’t remember the name of - or you do your best to never think about the question seriously at all. We live in our dreamworld or we stay sedated. But don’t you want to wake up? Don’t you want to be free?
And what to say of being free? Isn’t it the case that you’re a thing, and every thing has a cause? Wasn’t it the pain of longing, the desire for liberation, the hunger to know that you wanted to be free from? Didn’t you want to stop pushing the rock up that hill?
But wasn’t it you who pushed it back down last time, like every time, and then spoke to yourself as a mortal enemy might during the descent?
Must you go to such lengths to dream up new victimhoods for the very struggle you choose? The very struggle you were meant to face? At least when it’s not your fault: it’s not your fault. When you’re chained by the will of your god, or doomed by the inescapability of your fate, at least you’re free from responsibility.
What if you finally realized, the choice to suffer is yours, and to be free is to revel in the unknown.
Camus says, “forget how to hope and this kingdom of suffering is free at last.”
Forget hope! That hope where you wish for something different than what you’re being served. To be somewhere else entirely. To be someone else entirely. To be free from the only reality you’ll ever be served: the now. Whatever is happening RIGHT NOW.
If we are able to imagine Sisyphus in torment, in pain, it must follow that sometimes he is not, for a thing exists not without its antonym. There is no dark without light. Sisyphus is only in torment if he wishes to be somewhere else. You are only in torment if you wish to be somewhere else. Doing something other than you were doing. Playing with cards other than the ones you were dealt.
Once you break free from the consistent and persistent self-storytelling, imposed rules, the desire to be somewhere else, the illusion that happiness is all together free from struggle - that joy can emerge from pain: you find liberation.
You are free.
Camus claims to have an answer to nihilism. An answer to the human need for answers, and the blaring silence of the uncaring universe.
He calls it “The Absurd,” and this is how it goes.
The writhing and naive seeker finds Camus hungry for an answer, filled with hope that this handsome Frenchman has what will finally save him, but what liberation is the seeker met with? That we are to hold onto that squirming writhing feeling. The feeling that ironically brought us here in the first place, that made us crack open this esoteric book written by a brooding existential philosopher (who almost certainly wrote the entire thing while smoking a cigarette in the rain) is the first part of the answer.
What does Camus give us, simply? That to be free from that feeling is just to avoid reality. To avoid the truth. That we’re right in our intuition: there isn’t an answer. And now that we know that, we’re supposed to be free.
The first thing we can learn from this is existential, unsurprisingly. So much of the human experience is going to be punctuated with suffering and pain. And so often the answer to such things requires us to exercise our skills in perpetuation - sitting with it. And what better way to do such things? What better way to train this muscle than to hold onto the, as Camus wants us to believe, only philosophical question worth answering - whether or not to kill ourselves. Whether life is worth living and whether there’s a meaning to it all, that’s where this book starts (it’s a light read really).
The answer is easy, right? You adopt your all-encompassing belief network - the God you inherited from a great grandfather you don’t remember the name of - or you do your best to never think about the question seriously at all. We live in our dreamworld or we stay sedated. But don’t you want to wake up? Don’t you want to be free?
And what to say of being free? Isn’t it the case that you’re a thing, and every thing has a cause? Wasn’t it the pain of longing, the desire for liberation, the hunger to know that you wanted to be free from? Didn’t you want to stop pushing the rock up that hill?
But wasn’t it you who pushed it back down last time, like every time, and then spoke to yourself as a mortal enemy might during the descent?
Must you go to such lengths to dream up new victimhoods for the very struggle you choose? The very struggle you were meant to face? At least when it’s not your fault: it’s not your fault. When you’re chained by the will of your god, or doomed by the inescapability of your fate, at least you’re free from responsibility.
What if you finally realized, the choice to suffer is yours, and to be free is to revel in the unknown.
Camus says, “forget how to hope and this kingdom of suffering is free at last.”
Forget hope! That hope where you wish for something different than what you’re being served. To be somewhere else entirely. To be someone else entirely. To be free from the only reality you’ll ever be served: the now. Whatever is happening RIGHT NOW.
If we are able to imagine Sisyphus in torment, in pain, it must follow that sometimes he is not, for a thing exists not without its antonym. There is no dark without light. Sisyphus is only in torment if he wishes to be somewhere else. You are only in torment if you wish to be somewhere else. Doing something other than you were doing. Playing with cards other than the ones you were dealt.
Once you break free from the consistent and persistent self-storytelling, imposed rules, the desire to be somewhere else, the illusion that happiness is all together free from struggle - that joy can emerge from pain: you find liberation.
You are free.