Just finished The Myth of Sisyphus and wonder whether it's a me thing that I find essays like this so boring and ill-considered, or whether they really are truly pointless, vapid and long-winded.
After all that verbosity he comes to the wrong conclusion anyway. Sisyphus would be happy if he'd chosen his occupation himself, but if it's a task that's assigned to him by others then it's merely slavery, and who enjoys slavery?
Likewise, for the workers who have chosen their own careers, life is not absurd. Composing music, writing novels, carving sculptures, acting on the stage—whatever it is they do gives their lives purpose and meaning. It's only the slaves who roll boulders uphill and live absurd, meaningless lives. We can't imagine Sisyphus happy if there's something else he wants to do—dancing, building inventions, finding cures for diseases—and he can't do that other thing because he's working for the man pushing a stupid rock up a mountain.
Likewise there's the injustice of it. Why should he be punished for cheating death when the gods who punished him also cheat death? Especially when they're all so abominably wicked. Argh.
After all that verbosity he comes to the wrong conclusion anyway. Sisyphus would be happy if he'd chosen his occupation himself, but if it's a task that's assigned to him by others then it's merely slavery, and who enjoys slavery?
Likewise, for the workers who have chosen their own careers, life is not absurd. Composing music, writing novels, carving sculptures, acting on the stage—whatever it is they do gives their lives purpose and meaning. It's only the slaves who roll boulders uphill and live absurd, meaningless lives. We can't imagine Sisyphus happy if there's something else he wants to do—dancing, building inventions, finding cures for diseases—and he can't do that other thing because he's working for the man pushing a stupid rock up a mountain.
Likewise there's the injustice of it. Why should he be punished for cheating death when the gods who punished him also cheat death? Especially when they're all so abominably wicked. Argh.
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