we can think of myths as ways, cultural mechanisms, by which we can ask ourselves unanswerable questions.
Are our labors ceaseless, and pointless, and repetitive?
Is the glory of our labors those contemplative moments when we are momentarily free of our task?
Or, is the labor itself meant to incubate meaning?
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Monday, June 21, 2010
Sunday, June 20, 2010
two interpretations: the conventional one, that sisyphus, because of his trickery and longing for immortality, was punished with ceaseless labor...
dante's inferno 1200
the other interpretation, from Camus, is that the absurd hero of sisyphus regains some dignity in the pause between..
and Gertrude Stein demonstrated that, at least linguistically, repeittion never is the same.
Sisyphus has then become the figure for ceaseless labor.
1) ceaseless labor is our lot in life: we are all engaged in repetitive, and unending labor--and that our labor is ultimately futile, every accomplishment, every completed task is an illusion...that it is not only exceptional trickery or inappropriate longing for immortality that condemns us to ceaseless labor, it is the nature of life itself. If we accept this, then we can adjust ourselves more easily to the labor that life entails. And if not find pleasure in it, at least accept it as necessary. The very unrewardingness of repetitive and ceaseless labor becomes, in this formulation, a kind of reward itself. We see the honoring of suffering A thousand years after HOmer wrote of Sisyphus From the6th century philosopher, Boethius. IN h is CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY he promoted the idea that it was only by suffering that humans could get close to god. So suffering,a nd resignation to suffering is a strong strand in western literature, philosophy and theology.
2) An extension of this conventional interpretation of the myth by Camus says\ that we would do well, to look more closely at the pause between labors. the pivot point where in sisyphus turns and begins to go back down the mountain. If sisyphus clears his mind of the future labors, he can experience joy in that moment--the beautiful vistas from the hill, the breeze and fragrance of the plants, the relief to his aching shoulders and scratched cheek. That it is only consciousness of further labor--the prospect of further labor, the anticipation of further pain, that ruins the downward, and unburdened, stage of the labor.
Camus, writing in the 20th century, attempts to free us from the obedience, resignation, and darkness of a punishing world.
3) If it is the horror of the same task repeated endlessly that affects us, or depresses us, as readers of this myth, we might take Gertrude Stein's exploration of repetition to free ourselves from the horrifying "sameness" of Sisyphus' single task.
A rose is a rose is a rose. Ther eis no there there, or before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded. In this frame, the repetive task is never the same, so at least the horror of Sisyphus' repetition is muted
4) Certain political philosophies, unamed, would take apart even these two 20th century interventions i (stein on repeititon, and Camus upon the glorious joy of unburdened return to the valleys] find that many myths are fundamentally conservative, in that they seek to keep us bowed to authority, and use narrowed and styilized structures of human response in order to control the society.. when these systems of control and narrowed structures keep chaos at bay, they might be thought of as positive forces, binding the society to shared values. When the systems of control and narrowed structures of acceptable human behavior are deployed for some master plan of civilization, then we might find that the myths are a negative, restricting and limiting force in society. Because the term "myth" is typically seen as "untrue"--we do have the option, individually at least, of seeing myths as deep structures of universality, as does Joseph Cambell, or as stories made up to keep the Hoi Polloi, the common people, happy in their servitude.
And if we want to look briefly at a cross-cutlural example of the "myth" of ceaseless labor. Wu Gang, a chinese figure, was
dante's inferno 1200
the other interpretation, from Camus, is that the absurd hero of sisyphus regains some dignity in the pause between..
and Gertrude Stein demonstrated that, at least linguistically, repeittion never is the same.
Sisyphus has then become the figure for ceaseless labor.
1) ceaseless labor is our lot in life: we are all engaged in repetitive, and unending labor--and that our labor is ultimately futile, every accomplishment, every completed task is an illusion...that it is not only exceptional trickery or inappropriate longing for immortality that condemns us to ceaseless labor, it is the nature of life itself. If we accept this, then we can adjust ourselves more easily to the labor that life entails. And if not find pleasure in it, at least accept it as necessary. The very unrewardingness of repetitive and ceaseless labor becomes, in this formulation, a kind of reward itself. We see the honoring of suffering A thousand years after HOmer wrote of Sisyphus From the6th century philosopher, Boethius. IN h is CONSOLATION OF PHILOSOPHY he promoted the idea that it was only by suffering that humans could get close to god. So suffering,a nd resignation to suffering is a strong strand in western literature, philosophy and theology.
2) An extension of this conventional interpretation of the myth by Camus says\ that we would do well, to look more closely at the pause between labors. the pivot point where in sisyphus turns and begins to go back down the mountain. If sisyphus clears his mind of the future labors, he can experience joy in that moment--the beautiful vistas from the hill, the breeze and fragrance of the plants, the relief to his aching shoulders and scratched cheek. That it is only consciousness of further labor--the prospect of further labor, the anticipation of further pain, that ruins the downward, and unburdened, stage of the labor.
Camus, writing in the 20th century, attempts to free us from the obedience, resignation, and darkness of a punishing world.
3) If it is the horror of the same task repeated endlessly that affects us, or depresses us, as readers of this myth, we might take Gertrude Stein's exploration of repetition to free ourselves from the horrifying "sameness" of Sisyphus' single task.
A rose is a rose is a rose. Ther eis no there there, or before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded. In this frame, the repetive task is never the same, so at least the horror of Sisyphus' repetition is muted
4) Certain political philosophies, unamed, would take apart even these two 20th century interventions i (stein on repeititon, and Camus upon the glorious joy of unburdened return to the valleys] find that many myths are fundamentally conservative, in that they seek to keep us bowed to authority, and use narrowed and styilized structures of human response in order to control the society.. when these systems of control and narrowed structures keep chaos at bay, they might be thought of as positive forces, binding the society to shared values. When the systems of control and narrowed structures of acceptable human behavior are deployed for some master plan of civilization, then we might find that the myths are a negative, restricting and limiting force in society. Because the term "myth" is typically seen as "untrue"--we do have the option, individually at least, of seeing myths as deep structures of universality, as does Joseph Cambell, or as stories made up to keep the Hoi Polloi, the common people, happy in their servitude.
And if we want to look briefly at a cross-cutlural example of the "myth" of ceaseless labor. Wu Gang, a chinese figure, was
Gertrude Stein on repetition
A rose is a rose is a rose
There is no there, there. (oakland california)
before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded.
There is no there, there. (oakland california)
before the flowers of friendship faded friendship faded.
Wu Gang
Wu Gang was punished for his jealousy (and murder) by being banished to the moon and there forced to cut down a bay tree. The tree, however, was self healing, and so he was never done with chopping.
what is interesting is that this is an allegory of nature (the tree) resisting, in a kind of parallel endlessness, the chopping of Wu Gang.. this is a system in balance, ever replenishing --so while the tree and the man are engaged in ceaseless labor, the system itself is intact.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Use of the Sisyphus Myth in contemporary cartoons
IN some cases, the myth is incorporated into popular culture as a kind of figure of futility, endless unrewarded labor.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Albert Camus - Myth of Sisiphus
The Myth of Sysiphus
by Albert Camus
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.
It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife's love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.
You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward tlower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.
It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.
If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.
If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Edipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Edipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.
One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. "What!---by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd. Discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Edipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
by Albert Camus
The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor.
If one believes Homer, Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of mortals. According to another tradition, however, he was disposed to practice the profession of highwayman. I see no contradiction in this. Opinions differ as to the reasons why he became the futile laborer of the underworld. To begin with, he is accused of a certain levity in regard to the gods. He stole their secrets. Egina, the daughter of Esopus, was carried off by Jupiter. The father was shocked by that disappearance and complained to Sisyphus. He, who knew of the abduction, offered to tell about it on condition that Esopus would give water to the citadel of Corinth. To the celestial thunderbolts he preferred the benediction of water. He was punished for this in the underworld. Homer tells us also that Sisyphus had put Death in chains. Pluto could not endure the sight of his deserted, silent empire. He dispatched the god of war, who liberated Death from the hands of her conqueror.
It is said that Sisyphus, being near to death, rashly wanted to test his wife's love. He ordered her to cast his unburied body into the middle of the public square. Sisyphus woke up in the underworld. And there, annoyed by an obedience so contrary to human love, he obtained from Pluto permission to return to earth in order to chastise his wife. But when he had seen again the face of this world, enjoyed water and sun, warm stones and the sea, he no longer wanted to go back to the infernal darkness. Recalls, signs of anger, warnings were of no avail. Many years more he lived facing the curve of the gulf, the sparkling sea, and the smiles of earth. A decree of the gods was necessary. Mercury came and seized the impudent man by the collar and, snatching him from his joys, lead him forcibly back to the underworld, where his rock was ready for him.
You have already grasped that Sisyphus is the absurd hero. He is, as much through his passions as through his torture. His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life won him that unspeakable penalty in which the whole being is exerted toward accomplishing nothing. This is the price that must be paid for the passions of this earth. Nothing is told us about Sisyphus in the underworld. Myths are made for the imagination to breathe life into them. As for this myth, one sees merely the whole effort of a body straining to raise the huge stone, to roll it, and push it up a slope a hundred times over; one sees the face screwed up, the cheek tight against the stone, the shoulder bracing the clay-covered mass, the foot wedging it, the fresh start with arms outstretched, the wholly human security of two earth-clotted hands. At the very end of his long effort measured by skyless space and time without depth, the purpose is achieved. Then Sisyphus watches the stone rush down in a few moments toward tlower world whence he will have to push it up again toward the summit. He goes back down to the plain.
It is during that return, that pause, that Sisyphus interests me. A face that toils so close to stones is already stone itself! I see that man going back down with a heavy yet measured step toward the torment of which he will never know the end. That hour like a breathing-space which returns as surely as his suffering, that is the hour of consciousness. At each of those moments when he leaves the heights and gradually sinks toward the lairs of the gods, he is superior to his fate. He is stronger than his rock.
If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious. Sisyphus, proletarian of the gods, powerless and rebellious, knows the whole extent of his wretched condition: it is what he thinks of during his descent. The lucidity that was to constitute his torture at the same time crowns his victory. There is no fate that can not be surmounted by scorn.
If the descent is thus sometimes performed in sorrow, it can also take place in joy. This word is not too much. Again I fancy Sisyphus returning toward his rock, and the sorrow was in the beginning. When the images of earth cling too tightly to memory, when the call of happiness becomes too insistent, it happens that melancholy arises in man's heart: this is the rock's victory, this is the rock itself. The boundless grief is too heavy to bear. These are our nights of Gethsemane. But crushing truths perish from being acknowledged. Thus, Edipus at the outset obeys fate without knowing it. But from the moment he knows, his tragedy begins. Yet at the same moment, blind and desperate, he realizes that the only bond linking him to the world is the cool hand of a girl. Then a tremendous remark rings out: "Despite so many ordeals, my advanced age and the nobility of my soul make me conclude that all is well." Sophocles' Edipus, like Dostoevsky's Kirilov, thus gives the recipe for the absurd victory. Ancient wisdom confirms modern heroism.
One does not discover the absurd without being tempted to write a manual of happiness. "What!---by such narrow ways--?" There is but one world, however. Happiness and the absurd are two sons of the same earth. They are inseparable. It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily springs from the absurd. Discovery. It happens as well that the felling of the absurd springs from happiness. "I conclude that all is well," says Edipus, and that remark is sacred. It echoes in the wild and limited universe of man. It teaches that all is not, has not been, exhausted. It drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile suffering. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men.
All Sisyphus' silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is a thing. Likewise, the absurd man, when he contemplates his torment, silences all the idols. In the universe suddenly restored to its silence, the myriad wondering little voices of the earth rise up. Unconscious, secret calls, invitations from all the faces, they are the necessary reverse and price of victory. There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes and his efforts will henceforth be unceasing. If there is a personal fate, there is no higher destiny, or at least there is, but one which he concludes is inevitable and despicable. For the rest, he knows himself to be the master of his days. At that subtle moment when man glances backward over his life, Sisyphus returning toward his rock, in that slight pivoting he contemplates that series of unrelated actions which become his fate, created by him, combined under his memory's eye and soon sealed by his death. Thus, convinced of the wholly human origin of all that is human, a blind man eager to see who knows that the night has no end, he is still on the go. The rock is still rolling.
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
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