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SISYPHUS MYTH

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor...

At the end of that long effort, limited by that space with no sky and that time with no depth, one reaches the goal. Sisyphus then watches as the rock stumbles down in a moment towards that inferior world from which he will have to carry it up once again to the top. He goes down back to the plain.

It is during that return, during that rest, when I am interested in Sisyphus. A face that suffers so close to the stones becomes a stone. I see that man go down with heavy and measured steps that take him to a endless torment. That moment which is like a break and that comes in a way as certain as his misfortune, that is the moment of conscience. In each of these moments, when he leaves the top and goes deeper into the caves of the gods, he is above his fate. He is much stronger than his rock.

But in that very moment, blind and desperate, he realises that the only bond that ties him to the world is the fresh hand of a girl. A disproportionate voice resounds then "despite so many ordeals, my old age and the grandeur of my soul make me say that everything is fine". Sofocles' Aedipus as well as Dostoievski's Kirilov reveal in this way the formula of the absurd victory. The old wisdom meets the modern heroism. One does not discover the absurd without having tried to write a handbook about happiness before. "Alas! and, why these roads so narrow? But there is only one world. Happiness and absurd are both sons of the same land. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness is necessarily born from the discovery of absurd. It may also happen that the feeling of absurd comes from happiness. "I think that everything is fine", says Aedipus, and this word is sacred. It resounds in the unfriendly and limited universe of man. It teaches us that not everything is or has been used up. It expels from this world a god that had come into it with the dissatisfaction and the taste for useless sufferings. It makes fate the question that men must solve among themselves.

All the silent joy of Sisyphus is there. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his own. In the same way, the absurd man silences all the idols when he watches his torment. Towards the universe suddenly sunk in its own silence, thousands of little amazed earthy voices rise. These unconscious and secret calls, these invitations from all the faces, are the necessary reverse and the price of victory too. There is no sun without shadow and it is necessary to know the night. The absurd man wonders if his effort will never end.
If there is a personal fate, there is not a superior fate or, in any case, only one that he considers fatal and despicable. Apart from that he considers himself the owner of his days. In this subtle moment when the man thinks again about his life, Sisyphus, going back to his rock, watches these actions with no links, which become his fate, created by himself, united under the look of his memory and very soon sealed by his death. In this way, persuaded of the human origin of everything which is human, like a blind man who wants to see and who knows that the night has no end, he continues his way. The rock still rolls.
I leave Sisyphus at the bottom of the mountain! We find his load. But Sisyphus shows the superior fidelity which denies the Gods and lifts the rocks. He also thinks that everything is fine. This universe, from now on without a master, does not look sterile or futile to him. Every single grain of this stone, every mineral trail of this mountain full of night is enough to form a world. The fight itself towards the top is enough to fill a man's heart. It is necessary to imagine a happy Sisyphus.

Albert Camus: "Sisyphus myth"