"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...
...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 that lower 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."
From Being And
Nothingness...Jean-Paul Sartre
"To act in bad faith is to turn away from the authentic choosing of
oneself and to act in conformity with a stereotype or role."
From Thoughts In
Solitude...Thomas Merton
My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself,
and the fact that I think I am following your will
does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please
you.
And I hope that I do not do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road,
though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore I will trust you always though I may seem to be lost
and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me,
and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.
Kahlil Gibran
Knowledge of the self is the mother of all knowledge. So it is
incumbent on me to know my self, to know it completely, to know its
minutiae, its characteristics, its subtleties, and its very atoms.
From Wasted On The
Way...Graham Nash
Look around me
I can see my life before me
Running rings around the way
It used to be
I am older now
I have more than what I wanted
But I wish that I had started
Long before I did
And there's so much time to make up
Everywhere you turn
Time we have wasted on the way...
Oh when you were young
Did you question all the answers
Did you envy all the dancers
Who had all the nerve
Look round you NOW
You must go for what you wanted
Look at all my friends who did and got what they deserved
So much love to make up
Everywhere you turn
Love we have wasted on the way
So much water moving
Underneath the bridge
Let the water come and carry us away
From Southern
Cross...Crosby, Stills and Nash
Think about how many times
I have fallen
Spirits are using me
larger voices callin'.
What heaven brought you and me
Cannot be forgotten.
I have been around the world,
Lookin' for that woman/girl,
Who knows love can endure.
And you know it will.
And you know it will.
So we cheated and we lied
And we tested
And we never failed to fail
It was the easiest thing to do.
You will survive being bested.
Somebody fine
Will come along
Make me forget about loving you.
Teach Your
Children...Graham Nash
You who are on the road
Must have a code that you can live by
And so become yourself
Because the past is just a good bye.
Teach your children well,
Their father's hell did slowly go by,
And feed them on your dreams
The one they picked, the one you'll know by.
Don't you ever ask them why, if they told you, you would cry,
So just look at them and sigh and know they love you.
And you, of tender years,
Can't know the fears that your elders grew by,
And so please help them with your youth,
They seek the truth before they can die.
From Propinquity...Micahel
Nesmith
I've known for a long time
The kind of girl you are
Of a smile that covers tear drops
The way your head yields to your heart
Of things you've kept inside
That most girls couldn't bear
I've known you for a long time
But I've just begun to care
I've known of all the heartache
And I've known of all the pain
I've seen you when the sun shines
And I've seen you when it rains
I've seen you make a look of love
From just an icy stare
I've known you for a long time
But I've just begun to care