Depression and a story
1
Category: Mental Health
Date: 03 May 2017
Created By : shilpiJain
For a couple months I have been dealing with depression. I go to therapy and my family is supportive. I have a hobby of studying famous Philosophers of the past. Recently I came across the French writer and Philosopher Albert Camus often considered the father of Absurdism and I read his essay on the "Myth Of Sisyphus" (my username and profile pic) little did I know how much his essay would effect me. its really shown me maybe things aren't as bleak as I had thought.
To paraphrase the story: Sisyphus was a Greek mythology character who was cursed by the gods to roll a boulder up a hill everyday for all eternity, only for the boulder to roll back down the hill every day. This process went on and on of Sisyphus rolling this heavy burden of a boulder up the hill again and again.
Albert Camus states in his essay, "one must imagine Sisyphus as happy" he then points out how the boulder is Symbolic of the depressing everyday task of life. However once you start to recognize the absurdity of how repetitive everything your forced to do is the boulder begins to push you up the hill everyday instead.
I'm not entirely sure why but this story has given me a lot of hope to get better. Perhaps if we all recognize how absurd our days are they become a little easier to tolerate.
