SISYPHUS

The Stone Still Falls: The Summit We Keep Waiting For

“One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
— Albert Camus

Sisyphus pushes the stone up the mountain.

• It falls.

• He walks back down.

• And begins again.

• Forever.

At first, this sounds like hell.

Then you live long enough to notice something uncomfortable:

• Much of life has exactly the same shape.

You clean the room.

• It becomes dirty again.

You wash the sheets.

• They need washing again.

You solve one problem.

• Another arrives.

You build something.

• Time begins taking it apart.

You get your body strong.

• It requires training again tomorrow.

You repair a relationship.

• It still requires attention.

You work on yourself for years, finally becoming someone you recognize and respect.

• Then wake up the next morning and have to choose that person all over again.

There is always another stone.

Maybe the problem isn’t the stone.

Maybe much of our suffering begins with the quiet expectation that someday we will reach a final summit.

The place where everything is finally handled.

• Enough money.

• The right home.

• The right relationship.

• The successful business.

• The healed wound.

• The quiet mind.

• The body that doesn’t hurt.

The moment when nothing needs fixing, nobody disappoints us, nothing remains uncertain, and we can finally exhale and say:

• There. Now I can live.

But life never signed that agreement.

The Summit We Keep Waiting For

We spend an astonishing amount of our lives negotiating with reality. I’ll be happy when:

• When I have enough money.

• When the business works.

• When I find someone.

• When the relationship becomes secure.

• When my children are okay.

• When I understand what happened to me.

• When I finally know what comes next.

Then the stone rolls downhill again.

• A relationship changes.

• Money gets tight.

• Someone gets sick.

• A plan collapses.

• A body ages.

• Someone we love leaves.

• Something we thought we had finally figured out becomes uncertain again.

And immediately the mind says:

• Something has gone wrong.

But what if nothing has gone wrong?

What if the stone rolling downhill isn’t an interruption of life?

What if this is life?

The Second Stone

There is the thing that happens.

And then there is what we add to it.

The first stone might be grief, uncertainty, loneliness, financial pressure, insecurity, illness, a breakup, disappointment or change.

It is heavy enough.

Then we pick up another one:

• This shouldn’t be happening.

• I should be further along.

• I thought I was past this.

• Why does this always happen to me?

• When will my life finally settle down?

Now we’re carrying two stones.

• One is reality.

• The other is our argument with reality.

And sometimes the second one weighs more.

Sisyphus Has a Choice

• He cannot change the mountain.

• He cannot negotiate with gravity.

• He cannot convince the stone to remain at the summit.

But there is one thing the gods cannot completely take from him:

• His relationship with what is happening.

He can push the stone while hating the mountain.

• Hating the stone.

• Hating every step.

• Hating his life because it is not some other life.

Or he can recognize:

• This is the road beneath my feet.

• The stone weighs exactly the same.

• The mountain remains just as steep.

• Nothing outside him has improved.

And yet something enormous has disappeared from his punishment:

• His demand that reality become different before he permits himself to live.

That is freedom.

Not freedom from the mountain.

Freedom on the mountain.

This is where Camus and the Stoics almost shake hands. The Stoics understood that much of what happens to us lies beyond our control.

Camus went somewhere stranger.

Perhaps there is no grand explanation coming.

Perhaps the universe is never going to sit us down and explain why everything happened.

Perhaps some suffering will never make sense.

Perhaps the stone simply falls.

And still … 

• We can love.

• We can serve.

• We can laugh.

• We can make breakfast.

• We can hold somebody’s hand.

• We can ride our bicycle.

• We can help someone whose stone feels impossibly heavy today.

• We can notice the sunlight coming through the trees.

• We can make something beautiful even knowing it will not last.

• We can participate fully in a life that refuses to guarantee us anything.

That may be one of the most radical forms of freedom available to us.

Walk back down !! 

I used to think the goal was somehow getting the stone to stay at the top.

I’m beginning to suspect I misunderstood the assignment.

The goal may be becoming someone who can watch it roll downhill and walk after it without immediately concluding:

Something has gone terribly wrong with my life.

• There will be another problem.

• Another uncertainty.

• Another goodbye.

• Another beginning.

• Another load of laundry.

• Another morning when yesterday’s wisdom must be practiced again.

• Another stone.

So perhaps the question isn’t:

• How do I finally reach the summit?

Perhaps it is:

• Who am I becoming while I climb?

• Can I remain curious?

• Can I remain useful?

• Can I remain loving?

• Can I keep my heart open?

• Can I stop postponing my life until circumstances meet my demands?

• Can I recognize that even here, halfway up the mountain, sweating, uncertain, carrying something I never asked to carry. 

I am alive?

Maybe happiness isn’t waiting for us at the summit.

Maybe there is no final summit.

Maybe Camus was pointing toward something much more difficult and much more beautiful:

• The stone will fall.

• Walk back down.

• Put your hands on it again.

And every once in a while, while you’re pushing … look up at the sky.