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Life Is Absurd and COVID-19 Is Just Another Challenge to Make Us Stronger
In Greek mythology, Sisyphus ruled as king of Corinth and became known for two things: trickery and twice cheating death.
After pulling one over on Hades, Zeus condemned Sisyphus to the shadowy realm deep beneath the earth to repeatedly roll a boulder up a hill. Each time he would try to send it toppling over the crest — ridding himself of his eternal torment — the boulder’s weight turned it back, and once again the merciless rock would roll down the hill.
Destined to laugh in the face of the Gods, each time the boulder rolled back, Sisyphus dusted himself off, wrestled to reposition the rock, and then resumed his conquest to successfully push it over the hill. Over and over for eternity.
In The Myth of Sisyphus, a philosophical essay written by Albert Camus in 1942, Camus argues that life is essentially meaningless, but that doesn’t stop humans from continuously trying to give it meaning.
He uses Sisyphus and his eternal punishment as a metaphor for this persistent struggle to find meaning in a life that is, by nature, absurd.
Camus explains that Sisyphus recognized his eternal punishment as being absurd, but given the lack of alternatives (suicide wasn’t an option because he was already “dead”), his only logical…
