“If Camus were to revisit this world today, in the times of AI, he might revise The Myth of Sisyphus”
Dr. Jernail S. Anand | India
Albert Camus, while discussing the Myth of Sisyphus suggests that “the struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy” suggesting that the struggle is futile, repetitive, and ultimately meaningless, yielding no lasting results, and a man who expects nothing from this struggle is a happy man.
What Camus says may not be the ultimate truth. He is trying to interpret a myth according to his own circumstances, which are time-bound, and he too, is not absolutely a free agent. He is also a by-product of his circumstances. So many of his contemporaries did not think of life the way he thought. Suicide was a highly personal decision. If that fateful moment had passed, Camus might have lived on, may be to revise his own writings, because, as time passes, we evolve in our perceptions. I find it difficult to agree with Camus that the boulder that he is carrying is the futile tasks which fill his mind, and he is happy that he is busy with these meaningless tasks, i.e. his struggle against nothingness. This is what Camus calls absurd.
The Boulder: The Weary Weight of ‘Karma’
The myth focuses on the rock which Sisyphus is trying to climb, while I think the main issue with the tragic fate of Sisyphus is the boulder. Sisyphus is a representation of Adam, who was also cursed and thrown out of Eden, for reasons too obvious. The trek upwards signifies the spiritual elevation, a reaching out to gods, to heaven. But he rolls down the hill, and starts again. This signifies the various incarnations which man has to live through. The boulder that he is carrying is the collective weight of his ‘Karma’. Our actions are being added to the total mass of our fate, and we carry our cross on our back in the form of the boulder.
When we think of the ‘mass of karma’, it touches on the idea of human history, the dump of good and bad actions, that humanity has done, it has to carry like its cross on its back and move up. Millions lie dead on the way. The weight proves too heavy, and too unmanageable, but it has to be carried up. We cannot disown our past, we cannot disown our history. Once an action has been taken, we have to suffer its fall out. The boulder, it appears, is representing that dump of history, the junk heap of past ‘karma’ which is responsible for throwing our steps out of balance. What adds insult to injury is our passion for the past, in which we always choose to live. The entire educational world is busy digging the graves. Talking of the past is beneficial only to an extent. But an overdose of history only bamboozles us who represent Sisyphus in modern times. The boulder that Sisyphus is carrying is the burden of the past, the obsession with history, from which he cannot free himself, and it causes his fall, and he has to start afresh.
Reinventing Sisyphus
Shall we remain trapped in the image of Sisyphus? Is it our final destiny? Is there no evolution of human perception? Is there no other archetype to explain human condition? Mythology can only describe man’s existential status, but it cannot trap it. It is not that we cannot transcend the boundaries set by Greek myths. Men who scripted mythology looked back at what had been, and they wrote about it. If they are brought to life today, and asked to write the story of Sisyphus, the story will never be the same. Thus, what is needed today is Neo mythology which responds to the modern times.
Today, machines, AI will come to Sisyphus’s help, and he would be in a position to scale the rock, fortified by the power of the machines. We think machines are man-made. And therefore, artificial. If men are made by God, then, whatever they create has a godly connect. Machines do not exist outside the atmosphere in which men live. Can a motorbike run without the air, we need to breathe in? So, they are based on the elements which govern our lives too. Only their physics is different. And Gods have evolved their own vision in order to accept people with advanced technology. How could Sisyphus remain immune from the cutting edge of technology? I have no intention to deny what has been held sacred by the myths. Camus too is right in his own right. But I hazard a guess here. If Camus were to revisit this world today, in the times of AI, he might revise The Myth of Sisyphus.
Read: Man is never an individual entity
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Dr. Jernail S. Anand, with 200 plus books [19 epics] to his credit, is an authoritative voice in the contemporary world literature. Founding President of the International Academy of Ethics, and Laureate of Charter of Morava [Serbia], Seneca [Italy], Franz Kafka [Germany, Ukraine, Czech Rep], Maxim Gorky [Russia] Soka Ikeda [Japan] and Mahakavi Bharati [India] awards, his name is inscribed on the Poets’ Rock in Serbia. He is an Honorary Member of the Serbian Writers Association, Belgrade, a Member of the Honorary International Boule and Honorary Academic Senator of International Academy of Rome, and an Academic Member of the Academy of Arts and Philosophical Sciences, Bari [Italy].
