The gods punished Sisyphus for continually pushing a boulder up a hill, only to have it roll down again under its own weight. The gods thought there could be no more severe punishment than such futile and hopeless labor. Homer says that Sisyphus was the wisest and most prudent of those who would eventually die.But other legends say he succumbed to a life of robber.I don't see any contradiction in it.The disagreement of the various accounts is whether to give value to the behavioral motives of the invalid laborers in this hell.He was first condemned with a certain indiscretion with the gods, and counted their secrets.Asopus' daughter Aegina was kidnapped by Jupiter.The father was shocked by his daughter's disappearance and blamed it on Sisyphus. Sisyphus, who knew the inside story, said to Asoposs that he could tell his daughter's news, but only on the condition of supplying water to Corant Castle. He would rather get The holy bath of water, not fire and lightning.He was condemned to hell for this, and Homer tells us that Sisyphus once strangled death by the throat.Ploto could not bear the desolation and loneliness of the kingdom of hell, and he urged the god of war to free death from its conqueror.

It is also said that Sisyphus had the audacity to test his wife's love for him before he died.He ordered her to throw his body in the middle of the square.No ceremony will be held.So Sisyphus went back to hell.He was indignant in hell at the wanton trampling of human love.She obtains Proto's promise to return to earth to punish his wife.But when he sees the face of the land again, appreciates the flowing water, the caress of the sun, touches the hot stone and the wide sea again, he will never go back to the gloomy hell.Pluto's edicts, wrath, and warnings were of no avail.He lived on the earth for many years, facing the rolling mountains, the rushing sea and the smile of the earth, he lived for many years.The gods then intervened.Mercury came and seized the offender by the collar, and dragged him out of his life of joy, and forced him back into hell, where the great stone for his punishment was ready.

We've got it: Sisyphus is an absurd hero.He is also an absurd hero because of his passion and the suffering he endured.His defiance of the gods, his hatred of death, and his passion for life must have subjected him to indescribable inhuman torments: he devoted his whole being to a fruitless cause.And this is the price that must be paid for the infinite love of the earth.People don't talk about Sisyphus in hell.These myths were created to bring the figure of Sisyphus to life in the human imagination.In Sisyphus we see only one picture: a tense body repeating a single movement a thousand times: moving the boulder, rolling it and pushing it to the top of a hill; Face, what you see is the cheek pressed against the boulder, the muddy and trembling shoulders, the muddy feet, the completely stiff arms, and the solid muddy hands.After an effort bounded by infinitesimal space and eternal time, the purpose is achieved.Sisyphus then saw the boulder roll down again into the world below in a few seconds, and he had to push the boulder back to the top of the mountain.So he walked down the mountain again.

It is precisely because of this reply and pause that I became interested in Sisyphus.This face, which had suffered so much and was almost as hard as a stone, had turned itself into stone!I saw this man walking toward that endless misery with heavy, even steps.This moment, short as a breath and whose arrival is as certain as Sisyphus' misfortune, is the moment of consciousness.At each such moment he leaves the mountaintop and descends gradually into the lairs of the gods, beyond his own destiny.He is stronger than the boulder he moves. If this myth is tragic, it is because its protagonist is conscious.If every step of his walk is supported by the hope of success, where is his suffering actually?Today's workers work all their lives and complete the same work all day long. Such a fate is not less absurd than that of Sisyphus.But this fate is tragic only at the occasional moment when the worker becomes conscious.Sisyphus, the proletarian of the gods, the proletarian of futile labor and rebellion, is fully aware of his wretched state: it is this wretched state that he thinks of as he descends.The lucidity that made Sisyphus suffer also made his victory.There is no destiny that does not transcend itself through contempt.

If Sisyphus going down the mountain to push the stone is done in pain some days, the work can also be done in joy.This is not an exaggeration.I also imagine Sisyphus walking back towards his rock, and the pain begins all over again.When the imagination of the earth is too focused on memory, when the vision of happiness is too eager, that pain arises in the depths of the human heart: this is the victory of the rock, this is the rock itself.Great grief is a heavy burden to bear.This is our Gethsemane night.But eloquent truths fail once they are known.Therefore, Oedipus unknowingly submits to fate first.And once he understood everything, his tragedy began.Meanwhile, blind and hopeless, Oedipus realizes that his only connection to the world is the fresh hand of a young girl.So he uttered this shocking voice without any scruples: "Though I have gone through hardships and hardships, I am old and my soul is deep and great, so I think I am happy." Sophocles' Oedipus Both Dostoyevsky and Dostoevsky's Kirilov proposed the law of the absurd victory.The wisdom of the sages meets modern heroism.

If one wants to discover the absurd, one cannot but think of writing some kind of textbook on happiness. "Oh, what! With these narrow roads...?" But there is only one world.Happiness and absurdity are two offspring of the same earth.It would be a mistake to say that happiness necessarily arises from absurd discoveries.For the feeling of the absurd may well spring from happiness. "I think I am happy," says Oedipus, and this statement is divine.It echoes in the crazy and limited world of man.It warns people that everything has not and has never been exhausted.It expels from the world a God who entered it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile pain.It also transforms fate into a human matter that should be arranged among men.

Therein lies all Sisyphus' silent joy.His fate is his.His rock is his thing.Likewise, when the absurd man contemplates his pain, he silences all idols.In this suddenly silent world again, a thousand beautiful little voices arose from the earth.The unconscious, secret call, the demand of every facet, these are the necessary antithesis and price of victory.There is no sun without shadows, and night must be known.The ridiculous man says "yes", but his efforts never stop.If there is a personal destiny, there can be no higher destiny, or at least one destiny which is regarded as fatal and despised.Moreover, the absurd man knows that he is the master of his own life.At this delicate moment, man returns to his own life. Sisyphus turns back and walks towards the boulder. He quietly observes this series of unconnected actions that become his own destiny. A fate that gathers under the watchful eye of his memories and is soon to be fixed by his death.Therefore, from the very beginning, the blind man firmly believes that all human things come from humanitarianism, just as the blind man longs to see but knows that the night is endless, Sisyphus marches forever.And the boulder is still rolling.

I left Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain!We see the burden on him all the time.And Sisyphus tells us that the highest piety is to deny the gods and remove stones.He also considers himself happy.For him, this world without a master is neither a desert nor a wars.Every grain of this boulder, every grain of ore on this dark mountain forms a world only to Sisyphus.The struggle he has to fight to get to the top of the mountain is enough in itself to fill a man's heart.Sisyphus should be considered happy. Albert Camus (1913-1960) French existentialist novelist and dramatist. In 1957, he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Translated by Du Xiaozhen