![]() Sighing, Sisyphus plodded after it and started all over. Then, just as the top came in sight-no matter what the wily king did-the boulder slipped from his grasp and rolled right back down the hill. He heaved and puffed and shoved and moved the massive boulder inch by inch up the slope. His punishment for all his misdeeds, according to the story, was to push a heavy rock up a hill for eternity. ![]() He had enough wit to stay ahead of the game for many years-until he got caught. While responsible for a number of advancements in navigation, he also made a name for himself by inviting potential rivals to stay at his place and then killing them off to boost his own influence. According to Greek mythology, King Sisyphus was the Machiavellian politician of his day. First, let's talk about who this king was. Those are worse because you don't wake up.īut I'm getting ahead of myself. I used to have nightmares about King Sisyphus-not really the wake-up-in-a-sweat dreams of childhood, but more the kind of gut-punching thoughts that plague the daytime. Without the recourse to Pascal, the implications for happiness/satisfaction would not be clear.Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Pascal is relevant here because he provides the context in which Camus draws a picture of how bodily life and thought are related and - without explicitly mentioning it - allows Camus to draw the implicit conclusion that satisfaction in any given situation is impossible since life never stands still. at the same time "more" insofar it is part of the human condition that the state of an equilibrium between body and thought is necessarily impossible since life eludes us (our minds/thought) - and with it so does happiness. not an active going away from possible happiness or, put differently, being one with oneself (one's body). Well, it is "less" insofar Camus calls it an act, although it really is not even an active act as the thinking in Pascalian diversion is, ie. Now, what does Camus mean when he writes that elusion isīoth less and more than diversion in the Pascalian sense The first major difference is that Camus inverts the relation of Pascalian diversion as he states life to be ahead of thought, not the other way around. But Camus has a completely different picture in mind here. Relation between the twoīoth concepts are about how thought and bodily life are related and how this relation may prevent happiness. In other words: Our bodily life is always one step ahead of our thinking and eludes it in the sense that even when thought tries to catch up, life has already carried on. In that race which daily hastens us toward death, the body maintains its irreparable lead. We get into the habit of living before acquiring the habit of thinking. Camus' elusionĬamus, on the other hand, says that (bodily) life eludes our thinking, which he describes as follows: It tends to take us away from the present pleasure and prevents all simple satisfaction. Thus, Pascalian diversion is about how we leave the present situation when thought does carry us away, regardless of how pleasant it may be. A commission in the army would not be bought so dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge from the town and men only seek conversation and entering games, because they cannot remain with pleasure at home. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town. Diversion.-When I have occasionally set myself to consider the different distractions of men, the pains and perils to which they expose themselves at court or in war, whence arise so many quarrels, passions, bold and often bad ventures, etc., I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber.First, what does Pascalian diversion mean? This can be answered from Blaise Pascal's Pensée no.
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