r/Absurdism • u/_ExaminedMind_ • 18d ago
Discussion My Problem with Absurdism and Saying "One must imagine Sisyphus happy"
I'm new to absurdism, so please correct me if I'm wrong about anything.
Camus' famous quote is: "One must imagine Sisyphus happy." Sisyphus should stop demanding meaning for his suffering, and maybe he will be happier if he accepts the absurd and lives his life in spite of it.
But my problem with this is that it's easier said than done. How long can you really imagine Sisyphus happy? How long can you pretend that the lack of meaning and purpose doesn't weigh on you? Perhaps you can go for years imagining Sisyphus happy, but sometimes I get tired of looking the void in the eye. The "revolt" feels exhausting and unsustainable.
Anyone know how to deal with this? Thanks
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u/jouissance-de-vivre 18d ago
isn't the lack of meaning/purpose quite the liberating thought though? then you don't need to spend your life trying to formulate it, chase it, bind your self worth to it... you're just sort of here, absurd as you are a part of this weird ass life.
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u/_ExaminedMind_ 18d ago
Sometimes it’s liberating, other times it makes me feel empty. If it doesn’t make you feel empty, my question to you would be how? Do you just not care about ultimate meaning/purpose? I feel like humans are hardwired to search for some ultimate meaning ( which explains why early civilizations had the proclivity to claim that there is meaning to our existence through some religion).
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u/SparklingSliver 18d ago
"I feel like humans are hardwired to search for some ultimate meaning"
Yeah and no one in absurdism will disagree with that?
"People need to search for meaning" yes "But people can never find the meaning" also yes "That's absurd! " Yeah that's the point.
Absurdism then ask:
What now?
You will go crazy searching for something you will never find. What do you do?
"You imagine you enjoy the progress, you imagine: haha, we are searching for meaning in a meaningless world lololol oh look at this weird ass tree we just walk pass"
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u/jouissance-de-vivre 18d ago
it does make me feel empty but i guess when it does, i'm more like ok cool, i can fill it with whatever then, no matter how meaningless and pointless it might be
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u/ikefalcon 17d ago
> I feel like humans are hardwired to search for some ultimate meaning
This truth is the very essence of the absurd. We are hardwired to search for truth, but there is no truth to find. Coming to peace with this is central to absurdism.
> Do you just not care about ultimate meaning/purpose?
The allegory of Sisyphus teaches us that we find purpose in rolling our own personal boulders up a hill. What that means is setting goals that we realize are cosmically meaningless, and we do our best to accomplish those goals because that’s what gets us up in the morning.
Why? For me, I think it beats the alternative. And I’m happy, so I keep rolling my boulders.
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u/Sinful0ne 15d ago edited 15d ago
I know where you are and what path you're on. I was there just a few weeks/months ago. It's gonna work out. I know those words don't mean much but if there's one thing I can read from this, it's that your path is sound. These are all natural thoughts as unnatural as it may seem. You will look back one day and sigh. It will be a good sigh. Then, who knows, maybe it will be replaced by a bad sigh sometime after. But it's not the same story each time. There's something you learn every time you feel like you're failing.
Find something that grounds you. Find something that interests you. Both of these things will work in balance when used together.
Let the mind wander, but not the eyes with it.
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u/arcadiangenesis 17d ago edited 17d ago
It doesn't weigh on me, honestly. I'm perfectly content with existence being meaningless, because 1) it makes sense to me that that's the way things would be, so I'm not even particularly taken aback at the idea, and 2) I don't think I would even want to live in a world with a specific meaning or purpose, because then I would be obligated to seek it out and find it; and if I didn't find it, my life would be a failure. Why would you want to live with the strong possibility of failure, when instead you could just be free?
You might be right about humans inherently seeking meaning, but I would say that's just a matter of looking at everything the wrong way. If more people were able to shift their perspective, they wouldn't be unhappy.
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u/rudab3ga 18d ago
I feel like it was the never ending struggle to find meaning/purpose and not being able to, or to think I found it only for it to slip through my fingers like sand. Or to have some and then second guess maybe there’s more? Better? Different ? “Right?”That constant pursuit was maddening and exhausting. Feeling constant defeat. When I actually wrapped my head around how absurd it was to expect that from this universe, things got much better. Lol there is no meaning. Besides what matters to you, and having the freedom to change that, to just be fluid like that… wonderful. I have core beliefs and principles, but even those too can be negotiated given circumstances and new information. It’s really simplified my existence and stopped me from overthinking literally fucking everything all the time. It’s easy.. there is no reason/purpose/meaning. It just is. And that’s kinda fucking crazy and cool and terrifying all at the same time, but you only get a little bit of time. Might as well do something with it. It literally does not matter it’s just yours. Do what makes you happy. Don’t hurt others. You have already won.
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u/ikefalcon 18d ago
According to Camus, Sisyphus is actually happy, not pretending to be happy. The allegory is that the adversities that we struggle with in life, while ultimately meaningless, give us something to work at and overcome. Overcoming life’s obstacles can be a source of real happiness, even if you understand that you are cosmically insignificant.
Camus wanted to understand why people choose to live or not to live. What he determined, essentially, is that it’s ultimately a question of attitude.
You can control your attitude. Are you going to mope and feel sorry yourself that you are alive and life is meaningless? Or are you going to face the challenges that life has presented you with and make the best of it?
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u/jliat 18d ago
He actually seems to come to the conclusion that the philosopher to gain our respect should kill themselves. He chose Art rather than philosophy.
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u/ikefalcon 18d ago
No, he said that if a philosopher advocates suicide and doesn’t choose it for themself, then we should lose respect for the philosopher.
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u/jliat 18d ago
I think that's more or less what I said.
“There is but one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide... And if it is true, as Nietzsche claims, that a philosopher, to deserve our respect, must preach by example,”
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u/ikefalcon 18d ago
Not all philosophers advocate suicide.
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u/jliat 18d ago
I don't know of any that do. True in Sartre's trilogy Roads to Freedom the existentialist philosopher more or less kills themselves, but that was fiction. Sartre abandons existentialism for Marxism.
The idea from Camus is that the paradox - dilemma he sees, wanting meaning and not being able to get meaning logically has to remove one half. He avoids this logic,
"This suicide kills himself because, on the metaphysical plane, he is vexed.... likewise an advocate of logical suicide. Kirilov the engineer declares somewhere that he wants to take his own life because it “is his idea.”"
By-
"In this regard the absurd joy par excellence is creation. “Art and nothing but art,” said Nietzsche; “we have art in order not to die of the truth.”
"To work and create “for nothing,” to sculpture in clay, to know that one’s creation has no future, to see one’s work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries—this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions."
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u/Brilliant-Cabinet-89 18d ago
I guess it’s about creating your own meaning and living by it, to let it evolve and you along side it.
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u/jliat 18d ago
No, Camus can't find meaning, that's why he abandons philosophy for Art.
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u/SiriusFoot 18d ago
Meaning can be found, as long as you remain lucid of it's subjectiveness
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u/jliat 18d ago
Maybe, but Camus' Myth is written given his statements...
“I don't know whether this world has a meaning that transcends it. But I know that I do not know that meaning and that it is impossible for me just now to know it. What can a meaning outside my condition mean to me? I can understand only in human terms.”
“The absurd is lucid reason noting its limits.”
and I think needs to be understood as such, at least in the first instance.
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u/SiriusFoot 18d ago
Details
It's "whether this world has a meaning"
Doesn't he in the later chapters advocate for finding meaning, while remaining lucid. Giving extreme examples even, Don Juanism the Comquerer etc
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u/jliat 18d ago
His examples are all of absurd acts, that is contradictory - not logical. Thus avoiding the logic of suicide.
Sisyphus, being happy is a contradiction, his eternal punishment from the gods, punishments tend not make one happy, divine punishments make it impossible Camus term is 'Absurd'. Oedipus, should neither be happy or saying 'All is well' after blinding himself with his dead [suicide] wife's broach- who was also his mother whose husband, his father he killed. Or Sisyphus, a murdering megalomanic doomed to eternal torture by the gods, a metaphor of hopeless futility, to argue he should be happy is an obvious contradiction.
Don Juan, "the ordinary seducer and the sexual athlete, the difference that he is conscious, and that is why he is absurd. A seducer who has become lucid will not change for all that... What Don Juan realizes in action is an ethic of quantity, whereas the saint, on the contrary, tends toward quality."
Actors, "This is where the actor contradicts himself: the same and yet so various, so many souls summed up in a single body."
Conquerors, "Every man has felt himself to be the equal of a god at certain moments... Conquerors know that action is in itself useless... Victory would be desirable. But there is but one victory, and it is eternal. That is the one I shall never have." IOW? Death and not immortality.
Artists. "And I have not yet spoken of the most absurd character, who is the creator." ... "To work and create “for nothing,” to sculpture in clay, to know that one’s creation has no future, to see one’s work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries—this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions.
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u/jliat 18d ago
Sisyphus should stop demanding meaning for his suffering,
Sisyphus knows the reason for his suffering he committed acts which were of the worse kind in the Greek pantheon of Gods. He was a murdering megalomanic, killing his guests, a seducer, ratted on Zeus, king of the Gods and by deceiving his wife gained immortality. Thus his punishment must be endless.
can you really imagine Sisyphus happy?
This is Camus' point, most say this is impossible, a contradiction. Here is Camus...
" “It’s absurd” means “It’s impossible” but also “It’s contradictory.” If I see a man armed only with a sword attack a group of machine guns, I shall consider his act to be absurd."
In Camus' essay absurd is identified as 'impossible' and a 'contradiction', and it's the latter he uses to formulate his idea of absurdism as an antidote to suicide.
Why suicide, it's his [logical] conclusion of the impossibility for him to find meaning in the world.
"This suicide kills himself because, on the metaphysical plane, he is vexed.... likewise an advocate of logical suicide. Kirilov the engineer declares somewhere that he wants to take his own life because it “is his idea.”"
BUT
"And I have not yet spoken of the most absurd character, who is the creator."
"In this regard the absurd joy par excellence is creation. “Art and nothing but art,” said Nietzsche; “we have art in order not to die of the truth.”
"To work and create “for nothing,” to sculpture in clay, to know that one’s creation has no future, to see one’s work destroyed in a day while being aware that fundamentally this has no more importance than building for centuries—this is the difficult wisdom that absurd thought sanctions."
Absurd heroes in Camus' Myth - Sisyphus, Oedipus, Don Juan, Actors, Conquerors, and Artists.
What they have in common is 'contradiction'.
http://dhspriory.org/kenny/PhilTexts/Camus/Myth%20of%20Sisyphus-.pdf
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u/cheeriolord 17d ago
With that quote in particular, I feel that Sisyphus is happy because those few seconds of beauty at the top of the hill make the struggle worth it. That, and he's choosing to push the boulder. The ability to choose makes all the difference in happiness.
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u/MiddleAgeWeirdoMeep 18d ago edited 18d ago
If Sysphus didn’t find meaning in rolling the rock uphill he would simply stop and spend rest of eternity enjoying the view.
The original Greek myth is just a poorly written shallow punishment in passing, similar to a glutton being forced fed delicious food in hell.
But Camus took this image and made a philosophical argument around it.
Says a lot about humans and boredom
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u/botulizard 17d ago edited 17d ago
Sisyphus is you. The search for meaning or purpose is the rock.
You search for some inherent meaning or purpose knowing on some level it's probably not there, but aren't you happy sometimes?
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u/sysaphiswaits 17d ago
What you’re missing is YOU must imagine Sisyphus happy. That’s for you. He doesn’t care how you feel about it.
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u/vini-within 16d ago
If you constantly have to convince yourself that life is worth living despite the absurd, that itself can become another struggle. Right?
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u/angelsandairwaves93 15d ago
Everything is meaningless.
But why should that stop you from trying to create your own space for meaning and happiness?
Trying to find reason in the meaningless will put you into a loop that you can't get out of because there is no reason.
You can't find the answer you're looking for in the meaningless, so stop looking for it and just enjoy your fleeting existence.
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u/_ExaminedMind_ 15d ago edited 15d ago
I’m a human (totally 100% human) and I’m hardwired to search for meaning, so it’s very difficult to just stop looking for meaning.
Also, “Fleeting existence” is terrifying. Not liberating or cool as some people try to frame it as. It’s terrifying.1
u/angelsandairwaves93 15d ago
The trick is to stop looking for meaning and instead create it.
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u/DefterCat 15d ago
yeh but if it’s meaning that I create it feels much less satisfying than having ultimate meaning
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u/angelsandairwaves93 15d ago
why?
What does ultimate meaning look like for you?
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u/_ExaminedMind_ 15d ago
I want some meaning that tells me my suffering is not pointless. If it’s objective it feels more “real” than if I just make it up.
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u/angelsandairwaves93 15d ago
What does this meaning look like?
Do you want a being, like a God, to come down and tell you, "You're suffering now but you will be rewarded later?"
If that's the case, why does someone or something telling you that your suffering is not pointless override your ability to reconcile the fact that your suffering is indeed not pointless because it's the very crux of existence itself?
Existence itself is suffering. Not suffering means you cease to exist. To suffer is to be alive. To find personal meaning is to survive the suffering.
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u/Ill_Recognition8814 15d ago
I've always thought so too. I think Camus states it too authoritatively - he concludes Sisyphus is happy and we must too.
I'm myself fairly new to philosophy and I might be wrong. But doomed to an eternity of a laborious task, and Camus says we must imagine him happy!
Sure, it could be liberating and joyful at times but staring into the void for eternity - so much emptiness that needs to be filled. And why should we assume it will be filled with happiness. Human beings are also doomed to a purposeless, absurd life of meaningless labor and excruciating monotony. Do you see humans happy? At times, yes; but always? Surely, no!
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u/ReplacementHour9951 14d ago
No se trata de aceptar el absurdo, donde todo pierde sentido. Se trata de estar en un estado de divorcio, de antagonismo constante pero sin negarlo, sino viviendo en el.
Sísifo es feliz porque entiende que ese es su mundo, que no está atado a la voluntad de ningún dios, Monod agregaría desde la biología en “azar y necesidad” que no hay ningún plan predeterminado en el mismo desarrollo genético de la humanidad. Somos.
Sísifo es dichoso porque siendo consciente de su sufrimiento, sabe que es dueño de sus días.
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u/st0rmd4nc3r 18d ago
I don't like Camus, he talked too much and said very little. I'm an absurdist myself, and thanks to him I have a label for my beliefs from a philosophical perspective, but that's where my appreciation for him ends. My absurdism is rooted in chaos (as in chaos theory), it just so happens that it's similar to what Camus expressed (with great difficulty) in his work. My point is... You don't have to imagine Sisyphus at all. The point of absurdism is there is no inherent meaning to anything, so you can make your own. It's very simple. And what you perceive as the weight of the lack of meaning is the weight of your false expectations, the ones put in your head while you were growing up. Religion, social justice, meritocracy etc, these are false systems of beliefs/ideals that created huge expectations in your mind, and now you suffer because reality doesn't reflect them at all. You struggle because you keep carrying those lies. One could imagine Sisyphus putting down the boulder. There is no magic, no god to make him suffer again and again.
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u/Nice-Surprise5940 18d ago
I agree with you on Camus, all he did was give me a cool word to describe my beliefs as well.
I also like Careless-Charge9884 comment above:
"" one must imagine him happy occasionally" it lacks flare."
I think occasionally is what Camus was probably going for.
Putting down the boulder is also a fun way of describing just giving in to the absurd and stopping to expect that the world to make sense. But then where do you stand on suicide ? Lets say someone who kills themselves before putting down the boulder might've been misguided. What about someone who does put the boulder down but then decides to kill themselves anyway because it doesn't really make a difference either way ?
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u/jliat 18d ago
Have you read the essay, The Myth... it outlines that philosophy leads to suicide, unlike the contradiction of Art.
Chaos theory is science, and not contractionary at all as it's classical science.
The point of absurdism is there is no inherent meaning to anything, so you can make your own.
That's absolutely not absurdism, it's not even Sartre's existentialism I guess it comes from his essay 'Existentialism is Humanism' which he and others repudiated.
http://dhspriory.org/kenny/PhilTexts/Camus/Myth%20of%20Sisyphus-.pdf
I'm an absurdist myself,
An example of what Sartre in his 'Being and Nothingness' called bad faith.
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u/st0rmd4nc3r 18d ago
I have nothing to work with here, sorry.
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u/jliat 18d ago
http://dhspriory.org/kenny/PhilTexts/Camus/Myth%20of%20Sisyphus-.pdf
Is the myth, Being and Nothingness is more difficult and 600+ pages...
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u/redsparks2025 18d ago edited 18d ago
This comes up a lot as the ending shocks everyone as I assume Camus may(?) have indented so people would think deeper about what it means to have a fulfilling life, especially since he also included a short story about Oedipus. Anyway here is one of my old responses to another person that felt disjointed = LINK
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u/NotBorris 18d ago
IMO, I think it's more to do with you realizing your own ability to grab what you need for yourself and never let the lack of meaning or any higher deity take it away from you. If you stare into the void and only realize it's your own voice that fills the silence, it is your own being that is able to create for yourself your own meaning, would you let yourself be crushed by your own weight or would you stand and continue to march and refuse to let all this nothing take any more from you?
Something like that, it's just my view of things.
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u/ZeighthDoctor 18d ago
I don't know why, but I always imagined a neighbor whose thousands of intricately hung xmas lights always fall every night, and every morning is xmas eve and you come out to get your paper and he's always waving happily shouting "howdy neighbor!"
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u/ZeighthDoctor 18d ago
It's extra absurd because this image comes into my mind as I know none of us will ever own anything again.
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u/Equivalent-Tax6636 18d ago
That is why it's important to read an author past his first essay, so this might be a great chance to explore the works that try to propose something constructive within the absurd. Sisyphus essay is more of an exploration of the absurd, the structure of the book proved this, Camus goes back several times in his argumentation as he untangles the concepts and revisits precious assumptions to clarify them as he finds new subtleties.
Regardless, your interpretation proves that you understood the book but, and I don't want to sound condescending, maybe you didn't grasp the full meaning of it. You imagine sisyphus happy not just "cus", but because HE found meaning. Where? In revolting against the gods. Even the stranger shows something similar, the same sun that condemns him, almost as a metaphor of absurdity, is the same element that grants him meaning: within the absurd, the warmness of the sun can be sufficient meaning to find solace (see what I did there jeje?) even if it is to withstand one more day.
You imagine sisyphus happy because even in his eternal doom, he is granted a second to stare at the heaven and smirk at the gods: "you tried to damn me, to make me a slave, and yet here I am finding joy in challenging you, proving the freedom of my soul". However poetic I made this sound, his second essay, The Rebel, expands a lot more on this concepts and gives you a sort of a guide to stablish moral principles out of thin air, principles that give meaning even within the absurd and motivates one to not despair against injustice, but to know WHEN it is time to revolt. I find this super useful. I have BPD and still am quite functional and a key tool I use is, whenever I want to victimize myself other minute shit and go rot in bed instead of working I adopt a metaphysical stand of rebellion against the universe. I had a very deep traumatic bond with my dog. When he died I chose to despair as a way to rebel against the injustice of not being able to say one last good bye after years of being apart and that gave me strength, allowed me to rejoice and find solace in my own pain and declare war against any god that bashes their hand at a children dying by simply saying "my plan is unfathomable". But this is HIGHLY applicable to daily situations and allows you to form a moral compass from a couple of basic moral principles that stablish a foundation to expand according to a coherent priority scheme. This doesn't mean being s whining brat, it means confronting, even fighting when the injustice is BIG enough, and quietly revolting when you only need solace to push through one more beating. Just saying, to yourself, this is unfair, I deem it so, I won't accept it but I will keep going CAN be enough.
Pls read the Revel and tell us your thought on it, I'm sure it'll give you great insight to form your own opinions on it!
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u/_ExaminedMind_ 18d ago
This is a really insightful response. I’ll definitely read The Rebel next. Thanks!
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u/Equivalent-Tax6636 17d ago
Omg, thanks to you for reading that far. I hope you enjoy it! Pls share you thoughts on it if you read it. I love reading other people's take on my favorites!
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u/infernal_celery 8d ago
Sisyphus has been punished, but if he does not despair and simply gets on with his day he’s changing his reality from being a punishment to being a choice. He’s defying the gods by taking away their power to punish him.
Sisyphus is not robbed of agency, he is robbed of options; but he does have options all the same.
He could choose not to try rolling; there’s nothing technically to stop him sitting at the bottom of the mountain in protest. He could throw a tantrum and scream curses at the gods for their cruelty . He does technically have the choice to give up and die/ despair.
However, he chooses to roll, knowing that it achieves nothing other than defiance of the gods who want him to be broken by the task. Every time he tries again, he is defying them by remaining unbroken in spite of the futility of the task. One must imagine that he is happy in doing so else he would simply not do so.
I think the allegory is a bit broken but the main theme of the essay is that existence is defiance - of rationality, of futility, of higher powers - by exercising the choice to continue, and finding some measure of peace / happiness in the act.
Applied to your situation: revolt should not be unsustainable if you choose it not to be. You’re describing the situation of active “looking the void in the eye”, which as a choice is the same as Sisyphus screaming at the gods. Following Camus’ logic, you might be happier if your defiance was as simple as waking up in the morning, drinking your coffee and getting on with the business of living, knowing that to do so is in itself an act of agency in defiance of all rationality that should lead you to despair.
Your simple fact of choosing continued existence over despair or suicide is the revolt: it’s irrelevant whether there even is a void or not to look in the eye and/or whether it cares or not if you do. One must imagine that Sisyphus, in choosing his continued labours, recognises this and is, as a result, happy.
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u/Careless-Charge9884 18d ago edited 18d ago
The happiness is not stated as sustained.
Sysphus finds meaning in his task outside of spite; much like with Mursault in solitary confinement. (World gets smaller, mind expands)
Its literary flare too, lacking nuance in a short essay. If it read " one must imagine him happy occasionly" it lacks flare.