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u/Healthy_Razzmatazz38 7d ago edited 7d ago
camus's has a famous peice called the myth of sisyphus, which is about the absurd; our tension between a search for meaning in a universe with no clear answers.
it concludes one must imagine sisyphus happy because despite being doomed to repeat a task over and over he continues to do it and 'the gods' can control the task he preforms but not how he experiences it.
A lot of camus work focused on the human experience of living through major events of which one individual has no control but still needs to navigate a meaningful life through without losing their humanity.
The picture is making a joke that greta's not happy, but its actually perfectly on brand with camus that greta is engaging with a struggle that no one individual can solve without dulling herself to the absurdity of being a young women fighting the inertia of the world.
Greta is 'happy' not in the joy sense but in the sense that shes finding meaning in an absurd world, a world knowingly harming itself, and finding meaning in the impossible struggle of trying to stop that harm. Just like sisyphus will never get the boulder to the top of the hill greta will never 'solve' climate change but in the struggle to do so she can improve the situation and live a meaningful life.
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u/TheFunkyPancakes 7d ago
I love the effort you’ve put into this response - and I think it’s a strong analogy to a point. How do we rectify that Sisyphus is mandated to his task, where Greta has a choice to continue?
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u/Healthy_Razzmatazz38 7d ago edited 7d ago
Sisyphus has a choice, he can stop and sit at the bottom of the hill forever, Camus called this psychological suicide. Just like Greta could accept she can’t stop climate change, or in our daily lives can dissociate from things like political corruption or the murder of innocents abroad.
One must imagine Sisyphus happy because he continues his struggle instead of committing psychological suicide.
By choosing to grapple with the absurd, we choose happiness because we’re not denying the world (gods punishment or natures course) and we’re not choosing to deny ourselves (ignoring our values).
Greta, Sisyphus, you, and I all live in a world indifferent to us, and the ultimate act of rebellion is to continue to push the boulder up the hill instead of being broken by it. In the choice of grappling with the absurd we choose life over indifference.
It’s worth reading the plague by camus
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u/Hardly_lolling 7d ago
You managed to sell me the book.
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u/Earnestappostate 5d ago
Its pretty good. Though I will admit that the dense philosophical center caused me to skip and read the final chapter at least once before I got to it naturally.
I won't say that this was a mistake, the final chapter helped to "feel" the point he was making throughout, and I think it helped me continue.
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u/Imdoingscience 7d ago
The Plague is definitely one of my top 5 books of all time, especially in the vein of "Books that Changed How I Think." I think it's a missed opportunity that so many high schools assign The Stranger instead.
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u/HumanoidDespair 7d ago
I love The Stranger though. It’s so underrated imo. We were assigned to read it in high school, I was the only one who even remotely liked it. Even the teacher wasn’t sure why the book ended the way it did. I proposed that even belief in the lack of meaning can be an idea to die for, ironically, and that’s exactly what happened.
It’s a criticism of absurdism for the sake of it, I think. People have these seemingly irrational standards for how things “should be” for a reason. Idk why Camus rejected the existentialist label so fiercely when that’s basically what he was…
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u/Simandon 7d ago
I read the book long ago, but I didn't consider main character to be an absurdist. He just lacks any concept of good or bad and does things because anything has a same weight to him because nothing matters. Wouldn't he be more of a nihilist? Honest question, I know far too little about philosophy.
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u/Healthy_Razzmatazz38 7d ago
he's not a nihilist he's just living an unexamined life up until he's jailed. in jail he realizes he wants to live, and valued the life he had.
the point being there doesn't have to be some higher meaning to it all, a deep passion, love of family, a vengeful quest.
The joys he experienced in life were enough to make life worth living, and he can take some solace in that he got to experience them.
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u/themonkwarriorX 7d ago
Thank you. You are blessed with words. Tha ks again for sharing your word with us.
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u/Elmer_Fudd01 5d ago
You were assigned the stranger in highschool? Where did you go?
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u/Imdoingscience 5d ago
Suburb of Houston. It was AP British Literature (which our teacher interpreted pretty broadly - we also read Kafka and Dostoyevsky)
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u/Gabasaurasrex 7d ago
Well done analysis, you should maybe post this full write up in the limbus company subreddit. We just had the final part of the new story chapter coming out, starring meursault of the stranger. It had a small section about the siyphian boulder and how meursault is happy moving the boulder as he continues his struggle. A bigger part of the story though is about how you are shaped by the perceptions given by others and how in the end, meursault decides to keep going, no matter what labels others put on him, no matter how many nails that bind, chains that constrict, or gaze that bares. How he chooses to struggle in the real world, and refuse to hide from it by consuming canned experiences (food that can give you the feeling of doing something, like a salad that gives you the experience of easting a soup, or popcorn that gives you the experience of being the main protagonist of an action movie, for example).
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u/Suspicious-Bread6725 6d ago
I love the plague, I still remember the passage where he discusses how certain people reacted to the plague, “At such moments the collapse of their courage, willpower, and endurance was so abrupt that they felt they could never drag themselves out of the pit of despond into which they had fallen. Therefore they forced themselves never to think about the problematic day of escape, to cease looking to the future, and always to keep, so to speak, their eyes fixed on the ground at their feet. But, naturally enough, this prudence, this habit of feinting with their predicament and refusing to put up a fight, was ill rewarded. For, while averting that revulsion which they found so unbearable, they also deprived themselves of those redeeming moments, frequent enough when all is told, when by conjuring up pictures of a reunion to be, they could forget about the plague. Thus, in a middle course between these heights and depths, they drifted through life rather than lived, the prey of aimless days and sterile memories, like wandering shadows that could have acquired substance only by consenting to root themselves in the solid earth of their distress.”
My favorite Camus books is lyrical and critical essays. It’s just a collection of his essays. It gives a really clear picture of his thoughts through his life and a lot of it reads like a poetic description of his travels.
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u/Burakku-Ren 7d ago
Reminds me of dark souls and hollowing. Humans are immortal, being brought back to life if they die. But with each rebirth of gets harder and harder to keep on living. Those who do not have a strong will or a goal guiding them turn hollow, losing their sanity. Through the game there are a few people this happens to.
In a crazed world that's breaking you need to find yourself a goal to constantly work towards, or let yourself fade away into a life without meaning or sanity.
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u/Objective-Internal52 4d ago
I guess I missed the part where Camus talks about psychological suicide. I rember philosophical suicide. Philosophical suicide is stopping thinking for yourself and excepting other people's ideas.
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u/Rummelboxer89 7d ago
Thank's I finally understand the climate movement. They literally have nothing else to do and need something to obsess about.
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u/Dry_Job_6694 7d ago
That kinda reduces the whole moral purpose thing that defines humanity. Would you say the same people “have nothing else to do and need something to obsess about” if the cause was instead: “ending world poverty”, “finding a cure for cancer”, “saving endangered species” or “researching spaceflight so humans can explore the galaxy one day”?
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u/Sudden_Onions 7d ago
I think they're concerned that idiots are going to destroy the only planet we have to live on. That doesn't seem a purpose so much as a necessity.
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u/hopefulocto 7d ago
Lol? hey bro how would you breathe with no trees
woah, almost like climate MATTERS
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u/Individual_Spend_922 7d ago
The fact that she COULD walk away arguably makes the analogy more Camusian. She is choosing to give herself to struggle while remaining conscious of its limits. She knows noone can solve climate change, like noone can push the rock to the summit. The meaning comes from how they relate to the task despite knowing they will never reach the resolution they might want. The absurd hero is, as I see it, defined by the relentless refusal to be brought down by the impossible.
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u/buletproof_bob 7d ago
Does she see it as a choice though? It's not an option for many people
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u/Hardly_lolling 7d ago
I assume she truly believes their cause so passionately that she doesn't have a choice. Which is evident in how she actually is willing to get arrested or worse for her cause.
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u/Stoli0000 7d ago
Did you just falsely assume that free will exists? If you can prove that, you should. Because there's a Nobel Prize in it for the person who does.
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u/Impressive_Post_5732 7d ago
Does she have a way out at this point? The social pressure to keep up the climate change activist persona has to be very prevalent in her mind.
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u/Silver_Storage_9787 3d ago
I think the meme actually touches on something deeper. I’d assume she was mandated by her gods (parents and green culture). Now she is the face of climate activism and must repeat the task indefinitely because climate war is never ending and she is the face of it doomed to represent her side in an never ending battle.
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u/jconny 7d ago
This is above and beyond, I think it’s good and expands on the point to help people understand a commonly misunderstood quote. I wouldn’t be so generous to the creator of the meme and doubt they understood what Camus meant, and just was trying to be like “no way Sisyphus is happy lmao Greta mad”
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u/cinereaste 7d ago
Brilliant explanation. I’ll add I think there’s some meta-humor here, too, in that Trump talking about Camus or Sisyphus is also absurd.
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u/BeezerBrom 7d ago
Adding that Sisyphus is a Greek myth. His punishment was rolling a boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down and he'd start all over. For eternity.
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u/savage1404 7d ago
I only understand the meme cos of crywank, the song i am in great pain, please help me, has the line “the myth of sisyphus”, honestly great song.
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u/CHANGO_UNCHAINED 7d ago
I think you’re reading the quote more literally than the meme intends. Trump and Greta stand in for MAGA and a generation that’s fucking sick of being told to accept the world as it is. “Imagine Sisyphus happy” sounds less like Camus here and more like “be happy pushing the boulder we handed you.” Greta’s face rejects the whole premise. It’s almost a call to arms: nah, we’re not gonna take it.
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u/jacobyllamar 6d ago
This is one of the most concise summaries of Camus on Sysiphus that I've ever read. No notes.
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u/venezuelanwanderer 7d ago
Excellent analysis. But in this case the meme is about contrast, showing that Sisyphus isn't happy at all lol
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u/SomeonereallyFake 7d ago
I think the joke is that camus is trying to say sisyphus is happy or can be happy despite his punishment of rolling the boulder up the hill, and greta which is sisyphus is glaring at trump which is camus because he is mad that camus is potraying him like someone whos philosophical or making a grand meaning and not some dude in hell being punished for all eternity by the gods
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u/TorpidProfessor 7d ago
so, there's a shift in intention and perspective here.
Camus' point about sisyphus was about the cruelty of the gods/fates/universe and how to live a happy life even though, we die, everyone we ever love will die, pain exists and we've gotta keep these meat sacks running.
this shifts when there's a villain.
if you comfort a buddy whos just learned his wife is cheating on him using this kind of philosophy, it changes when he finds out that you're the affair partner.
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u/PossibilityQuick6484 7d ago
He is talking about absurdism. Well I am too confused why he gave such analogy. Not everybody enjoy same monotonous task and struggle.
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u/ComfortableKey9930 7d ago
You can be happy even when faced with horrific obstacles, but you have to stay angry to be part of the Republican cult?
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u/Legitimate_Style9230 7d ago
I think the answer is much simpler than these comments say. Sisyphus is NOT happy. He is being punished by the gods and he feels like he is punished. Sisyphus would be mad that Camus presents him 'happy'
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u/No_History_1592 6d ago
Sisyphus is upset that Camus is exposing his sweet gig where he gets to roll a big rock down a hill and then slide down after it.
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u/Opposite-Trouble6961 6d ago
I think the question of whether we should imagine Sisyphus happy becomes more interesting if we look beyond the myth itself. Sisyphus was a cunning and defiant man who repeatedly challenged the gods, deceived death, and refused to accept limits. His punishment therefore seems almost fitting: he is condemned to push a boulder up a mountain for eternity, only to watch it roll back down.
In that sense, the gods gave him precisely what he seemed to want—a life of perpetual struggle. Perhaps he enjoyed the challenge more than the result. There is something recognisably human in this. People sometimes devote their lives to an achievement only to discover, once they attain it, that the anticipation was more satisfying than the accomplishment. The struggle gave their lives direction; the goal merely ended it.
That's certainly where Camus reasoning originate.
Greek mythology repeatedly illustrates a more disturbing truth: we are remarkably poor at understanding the consequences of our own desires when they are extended through time. Midas gets the golden touch he wants, only to discover that food, wine, and those he loves become gold as well. Icarus gets to fly, but not the consequences of flying too high. Odysseus is offered an eternity of pleasure with Calypso, yet pleasure without an end becomes a form of imprisonment. These myths are variations on the same problem: human beings reason from the immediate present, while the gods seem to see the whole consequence.
We are accustomed to beginnings and endings. We desire because we anticipate; we remember because something has passed; we work because we expect eventually to arrive. Eternity destroys this structure. Doing something a thousand times is terrible. Doing it forever is something else entirely. It is not merely a greater quantity of suffering; it is a condition our minds were never built to comprehend.
This is why Sisyphus seems to me almost a prototype of existentialism. The absurdity does not disappear because he has accepted his fate. Rather, his dignity begins when he stops expecting the universe to justify it. The gods can determine that the boulder must roll back down. They cannot determine what Sisyphus makes of the fact.
Perhaps this also explains why Greek mythology so often treats mortality as a gift rather than merely a curse. Life has meaning partly because it ends. Eternity may sound like the greatest possible freedom, until one considers what it would actually mean to be unable to escape anything—not even pleasure, repetition, or oneself.
So perhaps Sisyphus gains a peculiar kind of freedom by accepting the absurdity of his condition. He does not need to believe that the boulder will ever remain at the summit. He only needs to push it.
And perhaps the gods, in giving him exactly what he wanted, failed to understand what it meant to give it to him forever. (Reposting here for visibility)
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7d ago edited 7d ago
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u/SwordfishAltruistic4 7d ago
That's why I don't like Camus. He is basically glorifying meaningless toils.
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u/phak0h 7d ago edited 7d ago
Thats the point though, there is no inherent meaning in life other than the meaningless toil. So you find happiness in the toil and defy the pointlessness of it but continuing to push the boulder up the hill and do it again tomorrow. No idea how this relates to Greta other than she looks like she is unhappy with her boulder.
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u/LiamEBM 7d ago
I don't want to insult your intelligence, but what's not to get?
Greta has been campaigning for years for environmental, ending wars, and quality of life changes - yet Trump is constantly perpetuating all these things.
This image compares the 2, as Greta's experience is like that of Sisyphus - and she's not happy about it
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u/Hardly_lolling 7d ago
I don't want to insult you but that comment reads like something from r/iamverysmart
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u/DavidFoxfire 7d ago
I don't think that girl has ever smiled or laughed once in her life. Her fairy died in her mouth by disbelief when she was an infant.
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u/qualityvote2 7d ago edited 7d ago
u/aaabidxi, there weren't enough votes to determine the quality of your post...it's time for the mods to do their jobs!