The Myth of Sisyphus summary

In The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus’ point of departure is what he called the intellectual malady of his day: namely that, in secular societies, most people experience a pervasive feeling of meaninglessness. 

This raises the question of what we ought to do about this feeling of meaninglessness. Is it something a person can live with, or should people return to religious faith? Can we live good lives in a meaningless world, or are we better off departing life as soon as possible?

In these blinks, you’ll learn that not only is it possible to live a good life without belief in an afterlife, but meaninglessness is actually the condition for a richer and more passionate life here on Earth. 

A short note before we begin: these blinks frequently refer to suicide. Please take care when reading.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

• why, for Camus, to be hopeful and to die by suicide are effectively the same response to life;
• what the infamous seducer, Don Juan, can teach us about how to live; and
• how the worst punishment the gods could think of is essentially the human condition. 

So far, we’ve considered the absurd experience from the point of view of a sense of value. In the tedious toil of our work and in the uncomfortable awareness of our impending deaths, we witness the value of our activities evaporate before our eyes.

But there’s another type of absurd experience that has less to do with value and more with the impossibility of ever arriving at permanent knowledge or understanding of the world. 

The key message here is: The absurd emerges in the confrontation between a person who craves understanding and a world that resists it.

These intellectual types of absurd experiences tend to be momentary and surreal. For example, we have an absurd experience when we momentarily fail to recognize ourselves in the mirror. Or, another example is when, for a split second, an intimate loved one appears like a total stranger.

What’s common to these experiences is that objects are momentarily divested of the meaning we normally attribute to them. Instead, we see them in their naked materiality as pure things.

Such experiences confirm that the material universe is in itself devoid of meaning. Instead, it’s human minds that are responsible for imposing meaning and order on the world so that we can make sense of it. For example, we label this person a “friend,” that person a “lover,” and those things “shoes.” This works pretty well when it comes to navigating the world on a day-to-day basis.

The problem is that the world is infinitely more diverse and more complex than our limited ability to understand it allows. Objects are constantly overflowing the narrow labels that we place on them, forcing us to re-evaluate those labels. Things don’t remain “friends” or “lovers” or “shoes” forever.

And when it comes to the really big questions, such as understanding why the universe exists, our attempts at understanding are hopelessly futile. Camus compares the person who tries to understand the world to a sword fighter who attempts to take on a platoon of gunmen. Both figures are absurd insofar as they are so hopelessly ill-equipped for the task that faces them.

Thus, Camus defines absurdity as the confrontation between a person who craves meaning and understanding on the one hand and a world that constantly resists understanding on the other.

So, the person who feels the world to be absurd in this intellectual sense feels that any theory that claims to be a final explanation of the world is disingenuous. In all likelihood, we will never come to a satisfactory answer to the meaning of existence. So what then? 

The absurd experience is fundamentally uncomfortable. It implies that our burning desire for purpose and understanding in life will never be completely met.

For some people, this awareness is simply too intolerable to bear. Thus, they seek an escape from the impasse. The typical mode of escape is to turn back to the doctrines of religion and philosophy through faith.

In a sense, faith in a doctrine solves the problem of the absurd by offering people answers to the meaning of life as well as providing a pre-packaged blueprint for living. The problem Camus has with this “solution” to meaninglessness is that it’s born more out of terror than of reason.

The key message here is: The flight into faith is an inauthentic evasion of our absurd situation.

Camus is not in the business of arguing that religions or philosophies are false. Rather, he merely points out that both religious and philosophical systems always end up depending upon assumptions that no one can possibly know for certain since they transcend lived human experience.

The only thing we can be sure of is our immediate sensory experience and the things contained within it. Any attempt to make claims beyond our experience is, therefore, an illegitimate move.

Of course, we might question the value of such an extreme adherence to certainty. If one has a more comfortable and enjoyable life with religious faith, isn’t that justification enough?

Well, the problem for Camus is not that blind faith is a betrayal of the truth. The truth is always uncertain, anyway. The problem is that turning to faith is a betrayal of oneself.

When people flee from the absurd into faith, they’re being deeply inauthentic. They are, in a sense, lying to themselves. They’re not living according to what they really believe in their hearts.

For Camus, one doesn’t solve the meaninglessness of life by pretending that it has meaning after all. The only authentic response is to accept and embrace meaninglessness for what it is.

In practice, this means three things: a total absence of hope for a better future, a continual rejection of any doctrine that claims to be an absolute answer to the meaning of life, and a conscious dissatisfaction that never goes away.

While this may seem like a recipe for a rather dreary existence, meaninglessness by no means prevents one from living a rich and fulfilled life. According to Camus, we must revolt against the absurd, not by denying it, but by living life to the fullest in spite of it.

In the previous blink, we heard the case for why taking refuge in religious faith is an inauthentic response to the absurd.

But, again, one might question the value of authenticity. If one lives a happier life with faith in God and an afterlife, then who cares if they’re being inauthentic?

Well, practically speaking, there are benefits to living authentically with the absurd. Over the next two blinks, we’ll discuss the two principal virtues of authentic living: freedom and passion. 

The key message here is: The absurd is the condition for profound freedom. 

While religious doctrines might placate the discomfort of the absurd by giving meaning to our lives, they also limit us to their interpretation of the world. By offering us a pre-packaged story of what we are and how we ought to live our lives, they confine a person to a monotonous and habitual mode of living.

When we, instead, abandon all attempts to impose meaning and order on our lives, we also abandon the obligation to live in a particular way. When we deny a higher power the right to dictate our lives for us, be it God or Fate or Morality, then how we live is something we must decide for ourselves.

Camus turns to fiction to find an example of someone who takes this logic to its fatal conclusion. Kirilov, a character in Dostoyevsky’s novel The Possessed, ends up getting killed by his own reasoning.

Kirilov argues that for life to have meaning, there must be a God. But since he doesn’t believe there is a God, he can’t believe that life has meaning. He concludes from this that he must kill himself – which he does. He also argues, somewhat absurdly, that through his suicide, he will become a God since the act will prove his absolute freedom and mastery over his own life.

While Camus agrees with Kirilov’s logic, he points out that actually going through with the act of suicide is not necessary to be free. All that is necessary is an awareness of the absurd.

Thus, we have an answer to the question of suicide. For Camus, suicide is not a legitimate response to the meaninglessness of life because it entails renouncing the freedom that this meaninglessness offers us. In this sense, hopeless suicide is just as inauthentic as hopeful faith. While they might seem like opposites, they are equivalent insofar as they both renounce the freedom entailed by absurdity.

Just as freedom is a logical consequence of the absurd life, so too is passion.

What’s meant by passion here is the sense of being present in the moment and having a direct relationship with the world in front of us.

The absurd stance leads to a greater appreciation of the present moment by liberating us from illusory visions of a better future in the next life.

The key message here is: The lack of hope in an afterlife leads to greater passion in this life.

The idea of an afterlife that is infinitely longer and more pleasurable than the one we’re currently living is inevitably going to devalue this life by comparison. These mirages prevent us from fully appreciating and taking advantage of the life we actually have.

By contrast, when we give up hope in an afterlife, all that’s left is this finite life here on Earth – so we better make the most of it.

While the knowledge that our lives are finite certainly causes discomfort, it also instills in us a sense of urgency to enjoy this life as best we can before we die.

This ethic of enjoyment is amplified by what Camus calls the overturning of quality in favor of quantity.

One of the logical outcomes of the absurd is that no experience is inherently more valuable than any other. If it's not possible to know whether there are any objective values, then there can’t be any way of conclusively affirming that one experience is better than another. The absurd leads to radical equality between all experiences.

This leads to a strange kind of ethic. Since it’s not possible to know what the best way of living is, you’re better off just trying to have as many experiences as possible before you die.

An example of someone who lived according to the ethic of quantity over quality is the notorious fictional seducer, Don Juan. This is a character who never shows any interest in achieving some perfect – and impossible – ideal of love. Rather, he merely aims to have as many short-lived, passionate affairs as possible before he dies. He dedicates his life to the pursuit of sensual pleasure, and he lives for the moment.

It’s important to note that Camus does not propose Don Juan as a model to be emulated, but merely an example of someone who pursued earthly pleasures with a passion. Ultimately, the kinds of experiences that you pursue in life are up to you.

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a renowned king of the City of Corinth whose intelligence and craftiness in life earned him the ire of the gods. 

There are differing accounts as to how he managed to earn the gods’ displeasure. In one story, it’s said he put Death in chains, thereby temporarily ending death on Earth and forcing the gods to intervene.

Sisyphus is, however, more famous for the punishment he received for his misdeeds in the underworld. He was eternally condemned to push a rock to the top of a mountain, only to see it roll back down to the bottom. Each time, he would have to walk back and repeat the process over again.

The key message here is: Sisyphus’ punishment is emblematic of the human condition.

The gods had good reason to believe that they could have found no worse punishment for Sisyphus. What makes the punishment so tortuous is not the labor itself but Sisyphus’ awareness that his labor is pointless and futile. 

It’s precisely this awareness that makes Sisyphus a hero of the absurd, for he is completely aware of his hopeless fate, and yet he continues to live it anyway.

Of course, in Sisyphus’ punishment, Camus sees the fate of all mankind. Whether we work nine to five or not, all of us engage in repetitive daily tasks and struggles that are, in the grand scheme of things, just as absurd and futile as pushing a rock up a mountain.

That sounds pretty bleak. But, still, that doesn’t mean we should despair. For even Sisyphus’ eternal labor isn’t entirely tragic.

In a remarkable twist of fate, says Camus, rather than being crushed by the awareness of the hopelessness of his situation, Sisyphus is liberated by it. That’s because a fate only seems intolerable when placed in contrast with the illusion of a better life. But, Sisyphus is free of the illusion that he will ever have anything more than what he already has. Thus, he does not compare his fate to something better. He merely acknowledges his condition and accepts it for what it is.

Camus imagines that in that period of respite when Sisyphus is walking down the mountain to retrieve his rock, that he feels a strange sort of satisfaction. Despite everything, he has become attached to his rock. If Sisyphus sometimes feels sorrow at his condition, we shouldn’t be surprised if he sometimes feels joy as well.

Like Sisyphus, we, too, can find joy and satisfaction in the struggle.