Chapter 1: The Man Who Cheated Death
Son of Aeolus and Enarete, Sisyphus established Ephyra (also known as Corinth) and ruled as its king. According to the Sisyphus myth, when Death came to get him, Sisyphus tied Death up to prevent anyone from dying. Sisyphus was forced toyield when Ares ultimately arrived to assist Death. Meanwhile, Sisyphus had instructed Merope, his wife, to bury his body without making the customary sacrifices. As a result, he was allowed to return to the underworld to get revenge on her for the omission. Sisyphus lived to a healthy old age after returning home before passing on a second time. This deception of the gods earned Sisyphus his punishment, rolling up a boulder up a hill for eternity.
Chapter 2: An Absurd Man
In the realm of philosophy and its inevitable ambiguity emerged the man Albert Camus, a man born as a working-class citizen in the neighbourhood of Mondovi, French Algeria. His mother was illiterate and deaf, and his father passed away during World War I. He was seriously ill with tuberculosis, always having constant thoughts of the proximity of death, causing him to question how meaningful life was. In his search for meaning in life, Camus was faced with a question. Was Sisyphus happy? Existentialism, a philosophical belief that Camus had, was a belief that people should identify meaning within their lives and possess a
certain goal to aim for and reach. In essence, Sisyphus had a clear goal in life: to roll a boulder up a hill, making him happy.
Chapter 3: Essential Denotations
Without doubt, we can ascertain that this topic itself is not one of simplicity. Some may not comprehend the essential terminology mentioned in the preceding sections; further elaboration is clearly necessary here. Arguably, one major term, ‘happiness’, would be necessary to define, due to its ambiguous nature and subjective views upon it. How is happiness defined? What are the essences, the fundamental ideologies that support it? Happiness, as common sense states, is a complex feeling. Some state that struggle is a prerequisite for happiness, although the inquiry that applies for this case would be whether Sisyphus is happy during his struggle. Happiness is doubtlessly something that cannot be quantified, and through the eyes of a believer of existentialism it is to have a clear meaning and purpose in life. Here, existentialism is the idea that one is a free will that has complete control over their agency, and that their development occurs as a result of it. In essence, if a person has complete control over themselves, they are to be considered happy.
Chapter 4: One Must Imagine Sisyphus as Happy
Through utilising different lenses of philosophy, we come to comprehend the fact that various perspectives exist in regards to this topic of whether Sisyphus is happy. Albert Camus, as aforementioned, discusses this idea in his book, Myth of Sisyphus. The central inquiry here would be ‘Is the act of doing something mundane considered happy?’, as this effectively portrays the current situation Sisyphus is put in. To first consider the proposition of this argument regarding his happiness, it would obviously need to acknowledge that Sisyphus has authority over his actions, and that in an existentialist point of view, this is how happiness is defined. Although it is fate that he is to push a rock up a hill, he has the complete right to decide whether or not he will roll the rock. He can dominate how and where he will roll the boulder. As he is given no limit in time, all Sisyphus needs to commit is the act of keeping the rock in motion. However, a valid rebuttal would be that he is confined in future actions, as he has a limited amount of such acts. His happiness is limited when placed relative to a person who has the choice to commit acts at free will. Developing the argument further, a viable argument to the opposition would be that the happiness that a person can receive from the happiness is variable, suggesting that it would be safer and this scenario lacks the unprecedented dangers that could potentially occur should the stable life of Sisyphus had not been given.
Moreover, the simple act of rolling a boulder up a hill is excruciating, as is the act of the boulder rolling over him. Arguably, elation and pain are contrasting images, which suggests that pain could act as a hindrance for the achievement of happiness. Viewing this inquiry from the most plain and straightforward way, Sisyphus may not be happy. The mundanity effectively aggravates this situation. Sisyphus, although he has a clear intent in his life, cannot pause when he wishes to and is forced to push the rock for eternity, which is a cause of mundanity. On the contrary, Sisyphus had a goal that he aimed to achieve, which meant his timeline in life always had a direction to work towards, and he was never left in the void in divagation. As his life was consistent, he knows that his life will never get worse. Despite this, he never achieved his goal, and was taunted by the fate of the boulder returning to its initial position when his goal was extremely close.
As demonstrated throughout this section, the issue of Sisyphus rolling a boulder up a hill is a complex matter to deal with, and simple ideologies cannot define this wholly. Although now disregarded from the heat of controversy, this remains as an unsolvable philosophical query. Now, the question is on you - do you think Sisyphus is happy rolling the boulder in eternal torment?
David and Aidan (NLCS Jeju)
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