One must imagine Sisyphus happy

one must imagine Sisyphus happy is a quote from Albert Camus but you've probably seen it in the comment section of a meme video like this but who is Sisyphus why did he get punished and most importantly why would he be happy rolling a boulder up a hill for all eternity to answer all of these questions we have to first learn about the story of Sisyphus Sisyphus was the first king of efura now known as Korean although a brilliant leader that brought this nation lots of wealth he was also an evil dictator just thinking of himself

this highlighted when he killed visitors from other nations bearing gifts and later marrying his own niece this behavior of course got the attention of the gods they were angered to hear all this but what they didn't know was that Sisyphus had many tricks up his sleeve coupled with extreme confidence the conflict started when Zeus took the nymph ajina flying away with her in the form of an eagle Regina's father the river god asopas panicked and followed their Trail all the way to ephira where he countered Sisyphus and his castle this is where Sisyphus had his

first plan set into motion he made a deal in exchange of the god making a river flow through the city the king told us Opus Which Way soos had taken his daughter when Zeus heard of this he was furious at the king he asked Thanatos the god of death to trap Sisyphus in the Underworld so he wouldn't cause any more trouble for Zeus but Sisyphus a clever man had another tricked up asleep when being chained up he asked Thanatos could you show me how the chains work Thanatos thinking nothing of it showed Sisyphus how it

worked the King used this to instead bind Thanatos in the chains later escaping from the underworld with Thanatos not being able to do his job no one on earth can die and the world plunged into chaos this instead angered the God of War Ares since the battles were no longer fun to watch he decided to free Thanatos Sisyphus knew that it would soon all be over but once again he was one step ahead before dying he asked his wife to throw his decaying body in the river as oppa's earlier made his soul eventually washed up

in the river's sticks when he was back with the dead he approached Persephone Queen of the dead and told her that his own wife hadn't given him a proper burial Persephone granted him life to go back to the living and punish his own wife of course like every single time Sisyphus didn't hold up his promise no he hadn't twice escaped death by outsmarting the gods they promised that there wouldn't be a third time when Hermes the messenger dragged Sisyphus back to Hades soos and Persephone he had thought that he was smarter than the gods but

the gods had the last laugh Sisyphus punishment was an easy task it seemed he was to roll up a massive boulder up a hill but once he got close to the top the boulder would roll all the way down and all Sisyphus could do was to start over and over forever how come this story is the most popular one surely there are more gruesome punishments from the gods in these Greek stories it's because this one has disturbing amounts of familiarity why would he be happy with his punishment to answer that let's break down The Man

Behind the quilt one must imagine Sisyphus happy and the philosophy that led to this powerful Tale Albert Camus was a French philosopher born in Algeria in 1913. he was born into poverty and lost his father at a young age Camus learned that life is a series of challenges and that we must face and confront them some other challenges he faced included tuberculosis leading him to become acutely aware of mortality which further led him on the path of existential crises and a search for meaning growing up in Algeria and then living through World War II in

France Albert grappled with inherent meaninglessness and randomness of the world around him the sudden irrational violence of War made the absurdity of the world ever more clear to Camus so let us delve deeper into his essay the myth of Sisyphus the idea of the Absurd which we mentioned before is from Camus perspective the conflict between our desire for meaning and the meaninglessness of the universe so just as Sisyphus tasks collect any ultimate purpose or end he argued that the same could be said for the human experience but rather than running away from the absurge hemuse

tells us to confront it directly we should revolt against our absurd condition by embracing life creating our own meaning and living authentically there we can find happiness Sisyphus has no concept of a better day or an afterlife his experiences are tied to the Here and Now Sisyphus Embraces the task and gives it his all revolting against nihilism and despair this allows him to be the master of his own story he is free even in his punishment Sisyphus is the hero in the story a tragic hero at that Camus imagine for smiling as he goes down

the mountain to start his task over again and gives us the picture that there's joy and contentment in embracing the struggles of life even though at the end of the day it's meaningless how could we apply this in our own lives we could just deny the unreasonable world this is the most common way to accept the world around us everyone makes up their own rules their own goals an example of this is religion finding peace knowing there's an afterlife or monetary gain finding peace knowing you'll have Financial stability when you retire but Camus rejected this

idea thinking one day we will be free instead we should recognize that we're free at every moment that heaven is on Earth rejecting the idea that one day we will understand the world we will overcome death or be happy one day it's a lesson to remember we must instead live our lives as much as possible rather than as good as possible because what is good is just another metric we humans made up we don't chase after things for the heck of it it's because of the experience of it in the same way for Sisyphus it's

not about getting to the top it's about the satisfaction of the task while you're doing it our lives are not far from similar to of his punishment if we are striving for money when will it be enough if we are striving for happiness when will we be happy enough what about power it is never enough it's just an endless race with no Finish Line but that's okay as long as you live in a moment [Music] foreign