(1) When I opened Camus's "The Myth of Sisyphus" (in its JPN translation) when I was 19, it was ten at night. I couldn't stop turning the pages. I had to devote a lot of time to each page not because it was hard but it was very much of substance to me.
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(2) When I finally reached the last page, it was already five in the morning. I stayed up all night. I've loved Camus all my life. In the abovementioned book, he tackles the issue of suicide on the very first page.
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Camus pissed me off with that whole "you must imagine Sisyphus happy" bullshit. I was like "What!" That's the same thing the optimists tell you: Just think happy thoughts. Be positive. And so on. Or did I misinterpret Camus? OED? What say you?
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I don't quite remember that phrase "Sisyphus happy." It doesn't piss me off at all anyway. Besides, perhaps Camus was being masochistic. I tend to be that way, so I don't mind it at all.
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It's at the very end of the text. Camus writes that one must embrace the struggle, that all is well, that it's neither sterile nor futile, and "one must imagine Sisyphus happy.
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In my understanding, existentialism is like "Yes, everything is meaningless. But live on anyway as if you believed in whatever you are doing." It's similar to what Samuel Beckett says at the end of his novel "The Unnamable": "I can't go on, I'll go on."
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Well, OK. Live on as if it is meaningful... even if you have to fake it. I think that's what a lot of people are doing, anyway. I think a lot of people know deep down it's futile & meaningless. But they carry on as if it's not. Just make believe. Play act.
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(1) What, then, do you think is the best way to cope? Keep teaching the whole world how everything is futile until they're convinced? That again may be futile.
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(2) People's blind urge to live on, pretending we see more good things than bad ones, is far stronger than that to put an end to everything.
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I don't think it makes any difference what one does. You can believe in something. Or not. In the end, it doesn't matter. I am continuing on by sheer force of momentum. I got no answers. Except don't procreate.
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"Except don't procreate." That's precisely the bottleneck. Most people just can't take it. And that's the root of all suffering.