(Originally Written October 14, 2008 in the Journal)
The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus
Sisyphus is an absurd hero. He has contempt for the gods and a passion for life.
His punishment was eternal labor to a futile end. "This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth" (Camus).
Sisyphus had to push a rock up a hill only to have the rock roll back down when it reached the top. Camus admires Sisyphus on the way down the hill. He leaves the heights and goes back to the valley. He marches to his torment and in that moment, he is stronger than his rock.
The walk to the rock from the top is his conscious moment. To be conscious is to overcome the torment.
Scorn your fate and you overcome the depth of it.
The absurd man is the master of his days.
Appendix
(Hope and the Absurd in the work of Franz Kafka)
The human heart only labels as fate that which crushes it.
It is through humility that hope enters in. (These are detestable to Camus. The philosophers who leap by deifying the absurd, i.e. Kierkegaard, Kafka, or Chestov).
To the philosophers like Kierkegaard, Kafka and Chestov the absurd of their existence assures them of a supernatural reality. The absurd leads them to God.
The Absurd man seeks what is true, not what is universal
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