I love this book, it's one of my favorite works of philosophy.

The issue with this quote of yours, and with Camus in general, is that absurdity is inescapable. As soon as you really think about life, you will not be able to avoid how absurd it is.

So lest we have a complete meltdown and kill ourselves (because there is nothing to live for), absurdity should be accepted and perhaps even embraced.

In other words, we get to create our own meaning, our own happiness, and even in the face of the absurdity we do not collapse -- we don't need to collapse -- because our meaning comes from within.

If you want a brief but amazing short story by Camus that illustrates this, pick up a copy of Exile and the Kingdom and read The Adulterous Woman. It's about a woman on some bleak bus trip with her husband, it's stifling, it's meaningless. And at night she can't take it any more and she runs outside and sort of "gives herself" to the stars in the sky -- and when she returns to the room with her husband she can't stop weeping. It's a gorgeously written story, and shows how in the face of absurdity there are moments of nihilism but also these lurid moments of sheer life.

Existentialism is a very psychologically-based philosophy. It's often better shown than explained.

Sisyphus would have to project himself into a connection with karma (cosmic justice). Because of his suffering, others will not make his error. He gains solace in the way that any loss is the shadow of a gain. If it were not for hunger, a meal would have no meaning.

Since he is now reconciled to justice, he must know that the universe is ordered and fair. He must then conclude that his punishment will not actually be forever, and that he will one day be released, or else the universe is unjust. As he is suffering for injustice, he knows that the universe is just, thus he must one day be released; even if he has been told otherwise.

Just as the boulder is pushed up the hill, it will roll down again. There is no up without down, no injustice without punishment, and no punishment without forgiveness and redemption.

For each instance of suffering he endures, there will be an instance of relief when it ends, just as each time he pushes the boulder up the hill, it rolls down again.

;-j

The more I hear about Camus the more i wonder why i never bothered to read him. I think you guys have convinced me to look him up on my next trip to Borders.

Unhappy Sisyphi don't reproduce.