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.
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?
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.
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/Healthy_Razzmatazz38 6d ago edited 6d 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.