I was getting ready to go to this restaurant in downtown. I was supposed to
meet some friends for lunch. I was excited as I haven't seen them in such a
long time. I already was picturing how I would walk in and how they would wave
happy to see me. I was thinking about what we would say to each other, what
would we do and so on. One last look in the mirror, ordered a
cab, took the elevator down, walked across the apartment complex, waved at the
driver, spent 30 minutes in the cab thinking about the upcoming lunch, paid
the taxi guy, walked across the canal, walked towards the restaurant and finally
opened the door. My friends excitedly waved at me.
We were there for about an hour, after that I exited the restaurant
walked across the canal, called a cab, rode back home, walked across my
apartment complex, took the elevator up, entered my apartment, spent the rest of
the day doing other things while also thinking about the lunch.
Now what does this have to do with an ancient cruel Greek king.
Let me explain
In 1942 French philosopher Albert Camus published an essay called
The Myth of Sisyphus
In this essay Camus introduces the philosophy of the absurd.
Man futile search for meaning, purpose and clarity.
He points to the absurdity of the idea that all of this will ultimately lead to something
He says, we build our life on the hope for tomorrow, yet tomorrow brings us closer to death
and is the ultimate enemy.
People live their lives as if they are not aware of
the certainty of death. Once stripped of its common romanticism, the world is a
foreign, strange, and inhuman place.
True knowledge is impossible
and rationality and science cannot explain the world. Their stories ultimately end in
meaningless abstractions, in metaphors
This is the absurd condition and from
the moment absurdity is recognized it becomes a passion, the most harrowing of all.
The absurdity of the eternal contradiction in humans need to
understand, against the unreasonable silence of the world forms the core of
The Myth of Sisyphus
In the fourth chapter of this essay Camus writes about Sisyphus.
Sisyphus was the clever albeit evil king of the ancient city-state
of Corinth. He's known for his trickery and deceit. He had trapped, cheated and
escaped death twice, which led Zeus to sentence him to what he thought was the
ultimate and cruel punishment. Something much worse than death itself.
Sisyphus was condemned to roll a boulder up a hill in the depth of Hades, the world of
death. The boulder would ultimately roll back down and Sisyphus has to roll the
boulder up the hill all over again for eternity. Camus presents his
Myth of Sisyphus as an allegory to humans search for meaning and the absurdity of it.
You're born, you learn to walk, you go to school, you go to college, work at the
office, get married have kids, buy a house have grandkids, one day just as you
entered in some corner of the world, you quietly exit. The world goes on, the
earth still spins, the indifference continues.
Most of us continue to live some version of this everyday.
Day in and day-out we live ruthlessly.
We return back to our apartments, sleep and start the whole thing all over again, just as
Sisyphus gets ready to push the boulder back up for eternity. But yesterday when
I met my friends at the restaurant I realized something.
I met them for all of one hour, but I got ready for 15 minutes, took an elevator
for one minute, the car ride was for 30 minutes, crossing
the river was for five minutes, and I did them all again when I was returning to
my apartment. I realized that hidden in plain sight was my life.
The mundane. Yeah I get a job, ask a girl out, make a film, meet my friends
those are important moments of my life. But majority of my life is not that. It's
the mundane things that make up most of my time in this earth. Things like
cooking alone while my balcony is open. Cleaning my apartment riding a bus or a
taxi to get somewhere, eating delicious food, watching ants crawl, bicycling
walking, lots and lots of walking, the quiet moments, the mundane is my life and
once I began noticing the mundane, I was captured by its brilliance.
The mundane is beautiful beyond words. Once you realize this fact, you begin noticing it
more and more and you are not in your own head thinking about where you're
going or what you're gonna do when you get there. You don't think about eating
while you're cooking, you simply cook. You don't think about your destination while
you ride, you simply enjoy the beautiful ride.
Camus ends his essay like this
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again.
But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks.
He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him
neither sterile, nor futile.
Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world.
The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Sisyphus is happy. I feel alive. I breathe in and out and I am happy.
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