There was time in college when I was attracted to
existential novels. I went through novels of Camus, Sartre and Kafka et
al. One day I saw this book in the
library ‘The Myth of Sisyphus’ couldn’t resist picking it up for the title was so
mysteriously attractive. I was soon disappointed. It wasn’t fiction but heavy
dose of philosophy. I didn’t have the mental perseverance to go through that
philosophical assault so left the book back to its shelf. I haven’t read that book even now but we can
read the summery in Wikipedia and save ourselves a lot of trouble. In the Greek
myth of Sisyphus, the wily King who even foxed God of death but eventually so
incensed Gods that they punished him to roll a heavy boulder up the hill ad
infinitum which would roll down as soon as it reached the summit. It appears
Camus used Sisyphus’ pointless effort as a metaphor to explain his philosophy of
absurd and reaches the conclusion that only in moments of realization of the
futility of meaning of life we are unhappy, however persistence of the thought
would eventually lead us to a situation of contented acceptance therefore to a
state of happiness. In essence he says, we must assume Sisyphus contentedly
resigned to his fate therefore was happy.
While I have no quarrel with Camus’ conclusions even though
his conclusions are dicey but another aspect of the Sisyphus myth bothers me.
Do we need to have tougher punishment available to enforce a punishment served
on a fellow? The point is what happens if Sisyphus refuses to roll the boulder
up the hill?
No comments:
Post a Comment