Legends and myths of Ancient Greece. The myth of Sisyphus

The phraseology of "Sisyphean labor" goes back to the legends and myths of Ancient Greece. The plot's hero is the ingenious Corinthian king, who managed to deceive the gods by all sorts of tricks. The myth of Sisyphus tells us that this disobedient dared to accept the people's side and help them in every possible way, which greatly angered the inhabitants of Olympus. He gave them secrets, accessible only to the gods. Unheard of act! Zeus himself sent Death after him, but even here the king of Corinth was victorious: he chained it with chains, making mortals immortal.

Kara for such acts was harsh. The myth of Sisyphus says that Zeus condemned him to eternal and painful work. He was forced to roll a huge boulder to the mountain, but as soon as the stone reached the top, he immediately slid to the foot, and it all began again. This is the Sisyphean labor, about which the myth of Sisyphus tells. The summary of the legend shows how difficult any action can be if it has no end and does not bring any benefit. Any meaningless and hard work is called "Sisyphean labor".

A stable expression that characterizes boring and sterile work has some synonyms. For example, in Russian you can often hear the phrase "Martyshkin labor". But these two phraseological units have different shades. Martyshkin's work is called action, which nobody needs and is almost ridiculous in its uselessness. While Sisyphean work means hard work that needs to be done again and again, it does not see an end.

You can draw another parallel: the myth of Sisyphus - perfectionism or maximalism, the desire at all costs to bring it to the end, to win at any cost, to rise above yourself like. True, such a comparison is sufficiently attractive and does not withstand severe criticism.

All these reflections have under themselves a single ground - the philosophy of absurdism, the founder of which is to some extent considered Albert Camus. "The myth of Sisyphus" is the name of his essay, which is generally considered to be the program product of the philosophy of the absurd. Camus poses the main question in his life: "Is the life of that labor worth the effort to live it?" The "man of the absurd" in Camus is Don Giovanni, spending his life on endless love affairs, and the actor, who repeatedly loses lives on the stage, and the conqueror, for the sake of glory forgetting about eternity. For that matter, the writer concludes, Sisyphus lives the most meaningful life in this world of absurdity: he has a goal - his stone, behind which he again and again descends to the foot of the hill. The world is one big absurdity, Camus believes, and the greatest courage is to accept its absurdity and follow its goal. Universal chaos is not a cause for despair. And the discouraging conclusion follows: the myth of Sisyphus is the story of not a miserable, but in his own way a happy man. Working in factories and factories and performing the same work day by day, a modern person, just like a mythical hero, abides in this absurdity, but the tragedy of what is happening is not realized by him, and therefore everything goes on as usual in this world.

And yet the misadventures of King Corinth took root in the public consciousness as a symbol of absurd and endless labor, and nothing can be done about it.