In their take, Sisyphus enjoys his meaningless task once meaningless numbers and trinkets are added to the game. Camus is saying that WE should imagine Sisyphus happy, for the sake of our own emotional and psychological well-being.Įxistential Comics riffs off this idea amusingly by introducing gamification. This statement is prescriptive, not descriptive. The essay ends with “The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. It's equally valid to say that his fate belongs to the Gods, after all. I think Camus was getting a bit romantic and prescriptive here. “All Sisyphus’ silent joy is contained therein. Camus then goes on to try to make the case that Sisyphus should be HAPPY.Īnd this is where I think it devolves into wishful thinking. Being aware of futility is torturous, which is why we avoid it as much as we do. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious.”

Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him?”, and “ The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. He was cursed to roll a large stone up a hill, have it roll back down, and repeat the process for eternity.Ĭamus uses quite a few words to make a subtle point - “If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. He wrote an essay titled The Myth Of Sisyphus, about a wise, prudent mortal condemned by the Gods to the most miserable of punishments - futile, hopeless, meaningless labor. And most of us, it seems, just keep avoiding it at all costs. We avoid discussing it with our families at the dinner table because it seems rude or impolite. We avoid discussing it with children because we don’t want to scare or frighten them. What’s additionally absurd is that we go through a lot of trouble to avoid facing up to this fact. We’re all clowns living in boxes trying to amuse ourselves with elaborate games in the face of inevitable death and meaninglessness. Life, particularly in modern civilization, is an absurd circus.

One must imagine sisyphus happy