One must imagine Sisyphus happy. But one cannot imagine that the phrase “One must imagine Sisyphus ____,” with Duster’s “Me and the Birds” playing in the background, a specific stock photo of a man pushing a boulder up a hill, and footage of someone repeatedly doing something in a redundant manner, would trend on social media. But while one must imagine that I’m never going to to stop using “one must imagine” to start all my sentences in this column, one must imagine that the average person watching an example of this trend doesn’t really get the meaning of “one must imagine Sisyphus happy” beyond “it’s funny cause he’s pushing a boulder up a hill forever.” Have they even wondered why Sisyphus is happy, and not grumpy, or hangry, or perhaps even a little Treatler?
To answer that question, one must imagine we take a step back and look at the writer responsible for the creation of this one, imaginable saying: Albert Camus. The s is silent, so if you pronounce it “ka-muze” you should probably stop, but one thing Albert Camus never stopped being silent about was life. In specific, something that he identified was life’s irrationality, or the contrasting fight between the law and order of humanity and the chaotically neutral universe. He found this contrast hilarious because it was completely absurd, a word which will totally not be repurposed as the name of his ideology. He also found it insanely compelling material for fictional works whose titles start with the word “the,” like “The Stranger,” “The Fall,” “The Big Book of American Idioms,” and the book that we’ll use to explain this phrase and ideology, “The Plague.”
In “The Plague,” one must imagine that the coastal town of Oran suddenly finds itself in the midst of a strange resurgence of the Black Plague, with narration following the character’s interactions with this environment. No spoilers, but the big takeaway I want to highlight is something that seems relatively obvious but is enlightening once you imagine it: things just happen. Rats start spreading the plague out of nowhere. A pastor succumbs to the plague after telling his church to fight it. A depressed criminal becomes un-depressed as the plague allows him to make money from smuggling people out of quarantine and then reverts once the plague ends because he can’t make money anymore. These things just happen, which one must imagine is exactly what Albert Camus is trying to teach you.
Life is unpredictable. It’s turbulent, tumultuous, and, one must imagine, pretty absurd. If you try to push back against it, you’ll die disappointed and unfulfilled. But one must imagine that life continuing in the small town of Oran, that pure act itself is what makes the contrast between human and life utterly joyful. Continuing to exist in lieu of the circumstances is what makes you truly fulfilled. Thus, no matter what meaningless, inexplicable thing you may be stuck doing, one must imagine you still happy.
This piece was originally published in Zephyrus’ print edition on Dec. 18, 2025
