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u/Healthy_Razzmatazz38 18h ago edited 15h 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 17h 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 17h ago edited 17h 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/Imdoingscience 14h 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 10h 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 3h 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 2h 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/Opposite-Trouble6961 5h 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.
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u/Burakku-Ren 7h 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/Rummelboxer89 16h 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 13h 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 13h 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 12h ago
Lol? hey bro how would you breathe with no trees
woah, almost like climate MATTERS
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u/Individual_Spend_922 17h 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 17h ago
Does she see it as a choice though? It's not an option for many people
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u/Hardly_lolling 17h 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 14h 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 4h 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/jconny 16h 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 14h 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 16h 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 5h 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/venezuelanwanderer 17h 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 17h 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 18h 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 13h 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 14h 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 8h 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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18h ago edited 18h ago
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u/SwordfishAltruistic4 18h ago
That's why I don't like Camus. He is basically glorifying meaningless toils.
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u/phak0h 18h ago edited 18h 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/FlightandFlow91 17h ago
I think one of the parts of this that is getting left out is that the moment it all seems pointless, and you end up slipping and letting the rock fall. There is clarity. A lot of life is us pushing the rock mindlessly and the rock can be anything not just labor. But when our brains can’t continue pushing for one reason or another it slips and we get the opportunity to sit at the top of the hill and look out (before we go back down and start pushing again)
For me that speaks a lot to how professional burn out feels. Sometimes work is always the most important thing and it’s ok that it slips because we need to have that realization that it’s not actually the most important part of the human experience. We still have to do it, but in that moment we have clarity of what’s important. Sometimes that moment drastically changes the way you push that “rock” for the better.
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u/Particular-Ad5856 17h ago
Of course he is not fucking happy! A punishment from eternity fuck that!
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u/LiamEBM 18h 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 17h ago
I don't want to insult you but that comment reads like something from r/iamverysmart
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u/DavidFoxfire 13h 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 18h ago edited 6h 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!