Sisyphus' Whisperings

Life is about a rebellion. For, there is no one can deny that the end of every life, no matter how grandiose or how accursed his life is, there is only void and death in the end of the day. One cruel day and all life’s work will be unraveled. This shocking revelation is indeed catastrophic to the contemplating human, as we are the only ones who has been bestowed the gift and curse to actually feel that we are dying. Certain people who are more sensitive has succumbed to the fainting ticking inside their heads and decided to end their life. It is due to this terrible end that makes man so lonely and forsaken. For, he knew that everything he fought for, everything that he assimilates as a part of him is just an illusion. Man is forsaken because we can feel close proximity but to never experience unity. Dark and terrible matters, equal in their celestial size and power yet opposite in essence, like the star and the black hole. Even those two different polarities are able to become one in substance but we who have chosen life companions of lovers and friends, deep inside we knew that on the deathbed we are utterly alone.

For this, does man has any reason at all to rise from the bed? Does man has the exact meaning of what is life at all? For, what is the use of all this toil and suffering for one unknown day, we’ll just collapse like sick cows and be gone. And the happiness we seek, promised in the holy document, is yet in pursuit but still unseen by the naked eye. What supplies comfort and joy today might be the most problematic and suffocating tomorrow. Adjectives can no longer attract us, words are just empty and other people are as unbearable to us as our self to us.

Thus, the only reason for man to continue in his misery is by rebellion. Let us ponder upon the crooning of Camus, “One must believe that Sisyphus is happy...” Sisyphus, accursed forever to roll a large boulder to the top of the hill only to be thrown under again and again for eternity. This are the true archetype of man. He knew that if he toiled at the beginning of the day, he will only found himself at the botton again, body straining and aching. But, this is the law of Nature, his punishment and his bane. What are choices left for him? He decided to, while day by day he rolled the boulder upwards, he will smiled and willed him to not succumb to the most lethal of the Gods’ curse; loath upon the fate of himself.  He will not give the satisfaction to the envious Gods with his despair and moroseness. This tiny space of comfort alone, constantly disappearing from the eternal agony is the only thing that he can control and possessed. It is the gift of choice the Gods bestowed upon him and he will make good use of it. Systems by systems will come and impose its orders and rules to us, but we shall obey and bend our knees to none.

Death is certain but I shall tell you when the eternal is; it is now and then. As Blake puts it, “Close the doors of perception, and you will find eternity”. To be liberated from the pains and cycles of world is to retreat within and without, the only space we have the control. Stress and trials from the Nature is the decree of God, for what is life without its skirmishes and battle? Our life is of the colors red and grey. There will always be deaths to be mourned, battles to be lost and lessons to be learned. God only judge us from the choices that we made, for the consequences of the action is utterly not of our domain. There is no action of Good that is not-good, for the perceiving of the good and evil is only to product of separating us from the natural courses and rendering the mournful events happened to us as “separate and exclusive”, that is by looking of only now and here. But God’s omniscient is complete and eternal. 

But, just like the Nature which operates under immaculate celestial laws commands no excess and superfluity, so does the action of man must be under agreeable homeostasis. For, how can the sojourn to enlightenment can be achieved if the vehicle is sickly and weak? This journey is no place for the weak-hearted and meek herds, indeed there are only two types of man in this world; the strong-willed and the quitters. Both of them subjected under the Sisyphean rules, but the strong-willed are constantly in motion, nothing can stop him except God when He put the entire chains of cause and effects to arrest. There are always answers and more questions in this life, if we are to open our eyes wider. For those who quit, no matter how posh and pomp their robes are, no matter how sweet their chants to the phantasy high heavens, they will never find repose.

Indeed the world runs on a never ending cycle, but the cycles moved towards the telos, the source. There is nothing new under the sun, for the consciousness of men is one historically. The wake of humankind with the descent of Adam signalled the filial age of Man. And, now we are approaching old age, the delta where the old man too is as naïve and helpless as the toddler.

Thus, to be rebellious is to be passionate, and to be passionate is to go against the current. For it is not illogical for the man who possess anything, who waltzed himself into everything and who is born with a silver spoon and the rest of the entire treasure under sky’s firmament in his mouth to be called as passionate. Passionate is the language of the unrequited, the paradoxical and the damned. Just like our forefather Sisyphus, them who are passionate know that death is certain but with the power of God, everything is possible. This is indeed the exact definition of faith! To declare our mortality to high heavens yet to move so gracefully and without any frowns and fear, this is faith. To know that our time is running thin, but to cultivate this world so prosperous and bountiful! To know that love never exists in this world, there is only in-becoming of love, yet he kissed his wife dearly and treats her suits to her position as the queen of his heart! Faith is not about anticipation and grovelling about tomorrow, but to make today as their eternal. Abu Hurairah himself said that the world is of three seconds, one that has passed, one we are experiencing now and another which is uncertain for us to have it.

Faith is about being stoic and to not ask for petty things in order to demonstrate faith, he rather use his works and toils as his true demonstration of faith. To be sufficient of today, qanaah or carpe diem or any other axioms you want to apply; that is faith. And all of this requires immense passion for we are going against the river in order to trace the Origin.  And to go against the current is to be at wrong with everything.

Blessed are the man who is born either too-early or too-late. Blessed are the man who is born in the wrong time, in the wrong family, the wrong society, the wrong realm and the wrong world.  For, it is only the people who are wrong who will ask the right question. Why should the men who (thinks they) are right bother with speculations and investigation?  It is the man who find himself at wrong, to find himself as the antithesis for everything the society uphold and lived for, it is he who will be the knight of faith and passion. No one can understand him, not even his lover or his mother. No one understand Abraham, even Sarah, for why the old man must slaughter his own son who he waited diligently years by years? Who can ever understand it is the voice of God within that asks him to prove his faith? Or how he ever knows that the voice is from God himself? But, he did it anyway for he is certain that his sufferings and agony is certain but with God everything is possible. He believed that he will get Ishmael in this life time, in one way or another for no God nor benevolent spirits of the earth wish for such filicide.

Blessed the man who are thrown away from the huddles of the herd, to be so alone and cold that he can be inspired and challenged to create a fire, Prometheus of his age and time. Behold, of the outliers. Behold, the whispering of Sisyphus.He has whispered to us that to live is to rebel and to rebel is to have passion. And to be passionate is to go against the current, and to do such is to be so wrong with everything. Now, we must believe that we too, are happy.

*Sisyphus is a mythological figure who was condemned to roll a boulder uphill eternally only to start all over again. Many writers, such as Albert Camus championed the myth as the archetype of absurdism and others as an archetype of nihilism. From my humble point of view, Camus' absurdism and Nietzsche's nihilism contains shards of truth as there can never be purposes, truths or any other absolute qualities in this relative world. 

**Pictures credit to Titian (Sisyphus)