The Myth of Sisyphus (Vintage International)

the myth of Sisyphus yes I must think that Sisyphus is happy

He paints a bunch of characters who are meant to be like absurd men... Camus says, well, imagine Sisyphus happy, right?

The myth of Sisyphus in Camus' writing is meant to symbolize this kind of, it's meant to stand in for us all... Camus says we must imagine Sisyphus happy.

He writes this short treatise called The Myth of Sisyphus, which is based on an actual ancient myth of Sisyphus who is condemned by the gods as punishment to roll a boulder up a hill

this is classic solgenits and existentialism this is and then if you ever want to sort of escape

But what I love about Camus in the myth of Sisyphus is that he talks about the process of discovering that void for the first time.

We live in a universe that's so inconceivably large and complex and of a scope that we as human beings can't even wrap our heads around. We live out our lives with every step we take. We're fighting against a tidal wave of things that are trying to kill us at any moment.

Camus gives two main strategies that Sisyphus uses to be happy.

Camus would say that as outsiders if we could somehow sit on the sidelines and watch Sisyphus push the boulder up the hill over and over again it would no doubt look to us like a totally meaningless torturous insane thing that Sisyphus is being forced to do.

there's only one philosophical question, and that's suicide

there is but one truly serious philosophical problem and that is suicide. Judging whether life is or is not worth living amounts to answering the fundamental question.

But I don't think that I either got to the end or really took in what you're saying was really the whole sweep of his argument.

The only consistent book that people come up to me and say, this helped me is Camus' myth of Sisyphus.

So if they read it, it helps them save their lives. They tell me over and over.

In the opening sentences Kamu talks about how knowledge of certain features of the world, like whether or not there are three dimensions. [...] He basically listed a variety of scientific questions. And he said, all of those are secondary because the only true philosophical question he said was that of suicide.

there was a essay done in the 1940s by Albert Camus called The Myth of Sisyphus in which he finishes the essay saying one must imagine Sisyphus as happy in that the pursuit towards the heights should fill a man's heart.

One must imagine Sisyphus happy. He is detached from the outcome, the idea of ever achieving or fulfilling the thing and he is simply doing it and he is on this other level had to accept an unfair even onerous fate to me I think sort of encapsulates some fundamental element of what the Stoics have to do.

He was saying that we should imagine the people throwing themselves into those things as as being sort of modern day Sisyphus is and that we should imagine them happy and that that's what Cerigordo has been to him.

Camus famously says we must imagine him happy.

Camus wrote in The Myth of Sisyphus I choose to imagine Schmidt as Camus's happy Sisyphus.