The myth of Sisyphus and his punishment: the torture of a meaningless life

Sisyphus is a famous character from the mythology of Ancient Greece belonging to the Homeric tradition, created around the 8th century BC. c. However, his story has transcended the sociocultural context of Hellenic history, because it has reached our days as one of the most important narratives linked to the importance of finding meaning in the things we do and, in general, in our lives.

On the following pages we will briefly review what is the myth of Sisyphus and the stone, and how it can be interpreted from existentialist and humanist philosophy.

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Who was Sisyphus?

Sisyphus was, according to Greek mythology, the first king of the city of Ephyra, currently known as Corinth. He appears characterized in the Odyssey and the Iliad as an ambitious and cruel ruler, who did not hesitate to use the violence to stay in power and avoid losing influence before his adversaries, which led him to kill several people. In addition, he did not feel ashamed to deceive people and, in general, he was described as having the characteristics of the classic tricksters.

Certainly, having almost complete control of a large territory and ruling it was not something unusual at that stage of the history. Hellenic history, but Sisyphus had the misfortune to impose his will by breaking the rules that Zeus imposed on the deadly. According to some versions of the myth, Sisyphus accused Zeus of kidnapping a nymph, while others say that he crossed the line by killing several travelers. At the moment in which Thanatos, death, went to look for the Greek king by order of ZeusSisyphus deceived the one who was to take him to the underworld by placing the chains and shackles that were meant to be used on him, so that he could not die until Ares intervened.

When the time came, the story did not end with Sisyphus staying in the underworld. True to his perverse and deceitful nature, the Greek king had asked his wife not to perform the typical rituals in honor of the dead, so that Sisyphus would have an excuse to ask to return to the world of mortals to punish her This wish was granted by Ares, but Sisyphus he refused to return to death's domain, so bringing him back meant causing new trouble to the gods. There began the famous punishment of the great stone.

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The punishment of the Greek king: dragging a stone

The sentence that Sisyphus had to serve was not based on physical pain, nor exactly on humiliation. It was based, in any case, on the fact of experiencing nonsense firsthand.

The punishment consisted of push a large round stone from the base of a mountain to its top to, once there, see how she fell rolling back to the starting point. According to some versions of the Sisyphus myth, this punishment was (or rather is) practically eternal.

The pain for the lack of meaning in life

As we have commented, Sisyphus is a man who did not exist beyond the network of narratives that structured the belief system of a large part of the Ancient Greek society. But although he only belongs to the realm of myths and fictions, there is something about him that is easy to identify with even in the contemporary era. Because his story tells us about the tragedy of living an absurd, something that leads to nothing.

The story of Sisyphus connects very well with existentialist philosophy, which in turn has greatly influenced the humanistic paradigm of psychology. This set of philosophers is characterized by worrying about the phenomenological aspect of experiences, that is, what is subjective, private and non-transferable to other people, linked to the consciousness of each one and to the sensations that cannot be fully expressed by the words.

That is why the way in which we give meaning to life, which is an aspect of life that cannot be exhausted by naming it through language, is something widely explored by existentialists. And that is why one of the most important existentialist thinkers, Albert Camus, dedicated a book to that piece of Greek mythology: The myth of Sisyphus.

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Camus and the myth of Sisyphus

For Camus, the main philosophical question that must be addressed is: what is the aspect of life that makes it worth living? Or, more succinctly: What is it that makes suicide not the option that seduces us the most? Circumstantial pleasure may invade our consciousness at any given moment, but in itself it does not make our lives worthwhile. What can make it worthwhile, on the other hand, is to make our actions fit into a vital project that makes sense.

But another of the usual premises from which existentialists start is that life in itself does not make sense. This is so because to assume that it does have it would also be to accept that beyond the nature of things there is something else, a story that structures and structures reality; but this does not happen. Reality simply is, it exists, and nothing else. For this reason, for Camus, it is oneself who must embrace the project of giving meaning to life, and not fall into the trap of assuming an existence like the one Sisyphus had by dragging the stone up the hill over and over again.