Absurdity – An analysis on the Myth of Sisyphus

By Sean Patrick B. Razo, STEM 12 – St. Dominic

“Life is unfair,” so they say.

Looking through the eyes of a normal human being, seeing that we are exceptional beings
capable of doing extraordinary things, we can’t really have everything we want in return. We
can’t really hold on to everything we have our eyes on. If we look at this the way we look at
simple things in life, then surely, we would be greatly dismayed.
However, looking at it philosophically, the phrase is not only a complaint at the injustice
of life, but also a statement of truth. Albert Camus, a philosopher, had an insight on the meaning
of life and how we, as human beings, should look to this life and not the next.
However, for him, life itself has no definite meaning. It doesn’t have one and we can’t
make one. We can’t really have a way to find an answer that will satisfy our need of security. He
believes that even science, philosophy, religion or society will ever create a meaning that
explains life and thus, presented as a problem of absurdity.
Absurdity, in philosophy, pertains to the tendency of humans to find the meaning of life
and the inability to find any in a meaningless universe. No matter how hard we look, we will
never reach the end of the search for meaning and truth. But according to Camus, truth and
meaning can be derived from “leaps of faith” by placing our hopes in a God beyond our world.
However, the true absurdity of the universe devoid itself from God. We will always be faced
with absurd situations where our attempts at searching for meaning will fail. From this Camus
believed that our lives are meaningless and will continue to do so, but it does not mean that
having a life that is meaningless makes it that much worthless. For Camus, understanding the
absurdity of life is the first step to be fully alive in a world voided of answers and concrete
conclusions.
After understanding the absurdity of the universe, next comes embracing the
meaninglessness that comes with it. A human person that fully understands life in this
perspective—that life is indeed pointless and full of repeated struggles—and can continue to
smile and not resort to suicide, is considered an Absurd Hero. Examples of absurd heroes for
Camus include: the lovers, who live the pleasures of love knowing that they are short-lived; the
actors, who present hundreds of lives shown briefly at his acts; the conquerors, who never settle
at any achievements for they know those achievements are only temporary and there are more
struggles up ahead; and artists, who create worlds of their own, describing the conditions of
existence with awareness of its uselessness.
But there is one absurd hero that Camus presented in his essay of absurdism: Sisyphus,
King of Corinth. The myth of Sisyphus is a story of how he was punished by the gods for trying
to escape death. When he knew that Death will soon come to his doorstep to take his life,
Sisyphus chained Death and hid him. Then the gods noticed that no human was dying for the last
few days. They soon found out that Death went missing and eventually found that Sisyphus was
the one to blame for having chained Death. Sisyphus was punished with the task of pushing a
boulder to the top of a mountain. A rather easy task he said in his mind. When he started pushing
the boulder and is almost at the top of the mountain, the boulder then rolled back down to the
foot of the mountain. Displeased, Sisyphus tried once more. The boulder however rolled once
again down to the bottom. He would go on to face this punishment for eternity, trying to push the
boulder all the way to the top only for it to roll again and again repeatedly.
Camus saw something from Sisyphus that closely depicts the challenges of absurdism.
Camus claims that Sisyphus is the ideal absurd hero and that his punishment was a representation
of human condition: to struggle perpetually without hopes of success. That for Sisyphus was able
to accept that there is nothing more to life than to struggle, he was able to be contented and
eventually was able to find happiness in it.
What does everything about meaninglessness in life mean? It means that despite life
appearing to be useless, it doesn’t have to be that way most of the time. Camus recommends
everyone to go out and enjoy life the way it is meant to be lived: in the present, without minding
tomorrow and the future. Camus calls for us to not give into despair and embrace the
meaninglessness of life by choosing to carry on with what we enjoy whilst being aware that
challenges and struggles are also a part of it all.
There can never be a meaning that satisfies our need for concrete explanations. Life is
still worth living regardless of its uncertainties and it being close to death.
Going back to the first phrase, yes, life is indeed unfair. But to complain is just a waste of
precious time. Let us not be narrow-minded humans. To accept this struggle is to embrace the
fact that we can never truly have everything we imagine ourselves having. To accept this opens
ourselves to live in contentment and allows us to really live our lives in the best possible way.
The life itself is devoid of concrete explanation. But even if it appears to be meaningless and
pointless, the right way of living makes every second worth it.