why is Sisyphus happy?

in moments of intense despair I always found comfort in the closing line of kamuz the myth of Copus one must imagine cisus happy I've often taken it to mean that regardless of external circumstances there is some choice in my reaction to things Copus condemned to roll a rock up a hill for eternity nonetheless enjoys the task for its own sake however I have also found myself questioning the premise of his argument if life is truly Terri isn't this just a big cope doesn't this amount to simply telling a depressed or traumatized person that they should be happy and smile through the pain why is Copus happy is he stupid his life sucks this video is sponsored by pursuit of wonder if you're a fan of philosophy content on YouTube you likely have come across the channel pursuit of Wonder this Channel created by Robert Pantano created creates content and books on all sorts of philosophical topics that relate practical life experience to the wisdom of past thinkers recently Robert released The Art of Living a meaningless existence ideas from philosophy that change the way you think this book targets one of the main issues I regularly struggle with finding meaning in life this book does a great job in helping us understand and grapple with these questions through exploring the works of philosophers from kirkgard to shopen hour I appreciated Pantano's section on nich's Uber mench which explores the arguments that led to n advocating for the idea of becoming oneself through building new values in a courageous and autonomous way to get your copy just click the link in the description of this video it comes in both ebook and paperback format and you can order your copy from either Amazon or pursuit of wonder.com also if you're a fan of fiction there's some fantastic FC fiction books by Robert Pantano that you can check out on Amazon and pursuit of wonder.com first we should take note of the conditions of Copus and how it relates to our own lives Copus is in an aversive situation he is forced to do something that will never work out similarly we have many Boulders that will always roll back down the hill we enter long-term relationships and spend our time pursuing degrees and careers within our life many of these rocks will roll back down the hill and after some grief we will inevitably start rolling them back up we could even argue that life is really just one big boulder where no matter how much we do it all will eventually roll back down to its eventual demise so what's the point if nothing is guaranteed and nothing lasts and most of this is just really terrible I think that the condition of Copus is similar to that of those poor dogs that psychologists electrocuted over and over again totally for scientific purposes eventually they noticed that the dogs gave up on trying to fight it they learned to be helpless similar research showed that people when confronted by hopeless situations will become helpless after they start to realize that nothing they do will change their circumstances often they will come to believe that because nothing worked in this situation nothing will work in similar situations this is learned helplessness Copus after realizing time and time again that The Rock will roll back down would likely also learn to be helpless based on a past of misery and futility Copus fails to see a future worth living for one must imagine Copus depressed for non- kings of a FOH like us learned helplessness manifests in resisting the past through various techniques that ironically take away any sense of control we have over our future through experiential avoidance we might scroll for hours or drink until the bar closes in order to avoid thinking about the situation or with counterfactual thinking we will continually resist accepting what has happened by ruminating over what could have been or what we could have done differently we Linger on a future that cannot be because it requires us to somehow change the past in both cases we are running from our past and this past is dictating the course of Our Lives we are in a sense running from our own shadow Kimu would call this the Absurd although he kind of got sick of being known as that absurd guy the Absurd is when our own desire for meaning and certainty clashes with a universe entirely indifferent to us we refuse our present circumstances demanding an answer ironically we think we have control over this somehow once I'm in a relationship once I get this job once I get this stupid rock up the stupid Hill then I'll be happy and Find meaning and all of this suffering will be worth it we fall for false hopes that repeatedly fail to live up to their promise through this we are perpetually disappointed after failures breakups and existential crises some of us toss up our hands and declare ourselves helpless in the face of the Absurd now this isn't a bad place to be you're actually further along than most because at least you're aware but now what kamu and Psychotherapy are in agreement with what one should do in such a state of despair accept it as Robert zaretsky writes for kamu True nobility lies in Lucid acceptance of the world its Beauties and its limits its Joys its demands its inhabitants and our common lot in philosophical terms this amounts to niches Amor Fati the love of one's fate where we accept ownership of Our Lives no matter how imposed it may feel my formula for greatness that one wants nothing to be different not forward not backward not in all eternity not merely bear what is necessary but love it this acceptance of one's current situation and what has happened in the past maps on quite nicely to an empirically valid method in dealing with learned helplessness acceptance and commitment therapy or act pairing CDT with Eastern teachings of acceptance and Detachment this therapy developed out of a recognition that what people in terrible situations are learning isn't helplessness per se but rather they are forgetting that they have control over their lives the first step in Act is to accept one's thoughts and emotions rather than resisting or evading negative reactions why did I date that person or why have I been condemned for eternity to push this rock up a hill we simply observe our thoughts such as I am having the thought of that time when I dated this person do you think this is stupid and cheesy and whatever you are going through is literally the worst thing ever great accept that thought with open arms and give it a cup of tea in doing this sort of radical acceptance we develop a different sense of self the self as context this self is the Observer witnessing our memories thoughts and feelings this is in cont to the self as content which is often seen as an overidentification with one's role just because you have failed does not mean you are a failure kamu diagnosis of the Absurd is actually closely tied to the sense of self as an inexplicable process rather than a graspable entity as he writes if I try to grasp the self of which I am assured if I try to Define it and to sum it up it is no more than a liquid that flows between my fingers I can depict one by one all the faces that it can assume this Same Heart which is mine will ever remain for me undefinable always shall I be a stranger to myself we suffer because we have identified fully with something that has no real self no real permanence we care more about what we are rather than what we do and this is an uphill battle what if we don't need to know who we are in order to be happy what if we accept that this quest for absolute self- knowledge is an inherently impossible task like rolling a rock up a hill that will always fall back down let's accept first that we will never fully know who we are okay but what might this look like in practice our absurd hero shares similarities to the dowst principle of genuine pretending in which one holds the ability to enact social roles without being tricked into submitting to them or being fully defined by them the genuine Pretender is like a child in play where they play different roles while recognizing that they hold no inherent value think about your childhood and how little you knew yourself wasn't that actually kind of freeing they Embrace transformation and change with ease and engage in the free and easy wandering of the heart knowing that their identity is both genuine in what it chooses to do Moment by moment and pretend in terms of how much it actually matters at the end of the day but you still have to go to work and it sounds like all we have given poor Copus is an identity crisis how does this acceptance not lead to apathy hinted at with the idea of genuine pretending our acceptance still entails an act of deciding what we should do once we have accepted things remember we are accepting things in order to reclaim agency over our lives and so the next step in Act is to choose a valued Direction ction act assumes that most of us want to have control over our lives the main idea is that our resistance to what has happened or what is has left us out of control of our own lives once we have accepted what is we can better decide what we want things to be on our own terms we can more clearly see what we value now this does not mean we need to accept how things will be if we can actually see a way to change them but sometimes you're not in a great place for the foreseeable future sometimes the gods can cond demn you to Eternal punishment and by accepting this for the time being rather than resisting it or running from it you actually reclaim what you can do next a beautiful example of this comes from the case of Rico who worked on an assembly line for audiovisual equipment While most workers were bored and apathetic resisting a job that is arguably pretty monotonous and undesirable Rico challenged himself to do his job as perfectly and efficiently as possible Rico stated that he loved the acceleration of using his skills fully he had accepted where he was and he made the most of it and with time he was even able to start taking evening courses for a diploma in electronic engineering in a non-ideal situation Rico accepted his conditions and then asked himself what can I do next another extreme example is that of Victor Frankle who condemned to a concentration camp nonetheless committed himself to the beauty of nature around him and the goodness he could still carry out in his deprived State despite being in such a materially unfree State he found freedom in his reaction to external circumstances Rico and Frankle both possess what psychologist Mii Chek and mihi calls the autotelic personality meaning someone who does things for their own sake rather than to achieve some later goal The Experience flow often which is the subjective experience of engaging in high skill and high challenge activities that result in a loss of sense of self enjoyment and greater life satisfaction their psychic energy seems inexhaustible he writes even though they have no greater attentional capacity than anyone else they pay more attention to what happens around them they notice more and if they are willing to invest more attention in things for their own sake without expecting an immediate return commitment allows for us to commit our attention effectively we don't need to develop a perfect goal or have absolute freedom over our lives to know our next move but we need something to orient ourselves towards a mountain climber sets as her goal to reach the summit not because she has some deep desire to reach it but because the goal makes the experience of climbing possible if it were not for the summit The Climb would become pointless ambling that leaves one restless and apathetic so what is the next action to make some coffee to take a walk to cure cancer accomplishing any of these tasks will not complete us or make us eternally happy but that is simply because there is nothing to complete we simply are and will continue to be until our time is up what will you do with this time to accept rather than resist our limitations our failures our mortality is to free one's attentional resources up and become more mindful there is admittedly something very Buddhist about the final lines in the myth of Copus in which he is fully present and almost lost in the activity of pushing the boulder up the hill he is by all accounts experiencing flow and in accepting his condition cimu imagines Copus surmounting any possible despair Copus has broken the shackles of helplessness and has taken control over his life he can now decide that yes the Absurd holds no promises or certainties but it also still offers objects for love nature art other living beings the endless mystery of who we are Copus upon acceptance of his situation commits himself to the beauty of life through the arduous task of Happiness this is a worthy cause as Simone weel writes Beauty defeats if only for short moments the selfish concerns and preoccupations that mostly govern Our Lives filled with wonder or filled with love we forget ourselves a precondition for making room for others in order to truly see to open ourselves to Beauty And Justice we must suspend our thought leaving it detached empty and ready to be penetrated by the object happiness then is something achieved through attention and effort through accepting the certainty of the past and the uncertainty of the future and ultimately through committing fully to the present the appropriate question then is not why is Copus happy but rather why should Copus be happy the same question I direct to myself at times why should I be happy the world can appear exceptionally cruel I have an endless list of regrets and things I don't like about myself and no matter what I do I'm going to die all of this is true I accept this now can I still justify my happiness Kimu flips happiness from something that we should try gain or accomplish into an ethical commitment or action we owe it to the good in the world and ourselves to be happy happiness is not something that happens to us or something we get rather it is a will towards happiness an enormous everpresent Consciousness the Conscious Creation of one's happiness regardless of external circumstances we owe it to ourselves and others to be happy because there still is good and Beauty in the world and in ourselves that by its mere presence justifies existence yes there is Beauty and there are the humiliated whatever the difficulties the Enterprise may present I would never like to be unfaithful either to one or the other importantly this happiness should not be treated like the toxic positivity of the average Disney employee we are not smiling in order to keep up appearances here kamu criticizes the pathological happiness he sees in American culture in this country where everything is done to prove that life isn't tragic they feel something is missing the happiness of Copus takes into account the tragedy of life and nonetheless pushes forth in the service of an unfolding present we must maintain our focus on the good in the world if we wish to rebel against all that threatens its beauty this focus is served best through an active and determined happiness in a sense the happiness enjoyed by CIS is less of an ecstatic and pleasurable state of satisfaction and more of what we may call equinity or Serenity an Acceptance in which one feels okay regardless of outcome it is the simple choice to accept what was and commit to what is with no stake in what will be this involves a careful balance between the sensual and the moral in order to fight for and honor these objects of love we must first be able to Embrace and recognize their inherent Beauty could we still justify War if we held the sanctity of a child to the highest esteem could we still justify environmental destruction if we held the beauty of a forest at dawn and nothing Beyond it as the very thing that makes life worthy here I am reminded of the anarchist Emma Goldman's refusal to stop dancing just because some revolutionaries felt that her thoughtless Joy would harm the movement's image if I can't dance I don't want to be part of of your Revolution kamu asks of us to accept that there is no hope and simultaneously to insist that this does not mean we should despair rather we should recognize the duty we have towards ourselves and others in committing to happiness in an essay titled between yes and no a much younger and less famous kamu sums up his point clearly when we are stripped down to a certain point nothing leads anywhere anymore hope and despair are equally groundless and the whole of life can be summed up in an image these images these Snippets of the present a laughing face a Rosy cheeked lover that moment in a song that never fails to move you dancing porch light talks with friends painting kissing swimming awkward hos and Bittersweet goodbyes tears of both Joy and despair the dancing of long grass in the Autumn Wind a mother's hug a stranger's smile the firsts and lasts the could have been and never will bees dirty dishes and Sunday coffees figuring out that math problem a busker's voice the pink sky at dusk seeing your loved ones happy this is enough we are all creatures of the Absurd rolling our rocks up that hill and it only takes a few of us to take up this duty of Happiness to imagine ourselves happy in order to develop the strength necessary in uplifting life in the short time we can to uphold those images you do have control and that means you don't really have to do anything what has happened has happened and what will happen is never guaranteed now what would you like to do [Music] next [Music] n

Channel: Sisyphus 55

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Length: 20min 14sec (1214 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 06 2023