Sisyphus
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A Sisyphus is a Greek mythical agent in the Sisyphus myth (who is punished for chronic deceitfulness by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever.
- Context:
- It can range from (typically) being a Dissatisfied Sisyphus to being a Fulfilled Sisyphus.
- …
- Counter-Example(s):
- See: Greek Mythology.
References
2014
- (Wikipedia, 2014) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sisyphus Retrieved:2014-12-21.
- In Greek mythology Sisyphus (Sísyphos) was a king of Ephyra (now known as Corinth). He was punished for chronic deceitfulness by being compelled to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down, and to repeat this action forever.
2010
- (Wolf, 2010) ⇒ Susan Wolf. (2010). “Meaning in Life and Why It Matters." Princeton University Press. ISBN:9781400834594
- QUOTE: ... Sisyphus, in the ancient myth, is condemned to an existence that is generally acknowledged to be awful. He is condemned eternally to a task that is boring, difficult, and futile. Because of this, Sisyphus’s life, or more precisely, his afterlife , has been commonly treated as a paradigm of a meaningless existence.
The philosopher Richard Taylor, however, in a discussion of life’s absurdity, suggests a thought experiment according to which the gods take pity on Sisyphus and inject a substance in his veins that transforms him from someone for whom stone-rolling is nothing but a painful, arduous, and unwelcome chore to someone who loves stone-rolling more than anything else in the (after-) world. 8 There is nothing the transformed Sisyphus would rather do than roll that stone. Stone-rolling, in other words, fulfills him. Sisyphus has found his passion (or perhaps his passion has found him), and he is pursuing it to his life’s content. The question is, what should we think of him? Has his life been transformed from horribly unfortunate to exceptionally good? Taylor thinks so, but some of us might disagree. ...
- QUOTE: ... Sisyphus, in the ancient myth, is condemned to an existence that is generally acknowledged to be awful. He is condemned eternally to a task that is boring, difficult, and futile. Because of this, Sisyphus’s life, or more precisely, his afterlife , has been commonly treated as a paradigm of a meaningless existence.
1942
- Albert Camus. (1942). “Le Mythe de Sisyphe (The Myth of Sisyphus)", translated into English in 1955