I was talking to a friend about work the other day, about the particular boredom and monotony that seeps in doing the same things for the same reasons. I found myself referencing Sisyphus twice in that conversation, which probably says something about my state of mind. But it also got me thinking, which is how this essay came to be.
Work is often surrounded by this particular brand of exhaustion that comes from the slow erosion of giving yourself to something that gives nothing back. “It’s like Sisyphus,” I said, “pushing that boulder up the hill, watching it roll back down, pushing it up again.” But here’s where my thinking diverges from the usual interpretation. I’m not interested in finding meaning in the boulder. I’m not trying to imagine Sisyphus happy. Instead, I’ve developed what I call my “Sisyphus mode”: a state of complete emotional detachment from work, where I accept its fundamental meaninglessness.
And no, this isn’t me being nihilistic. I find the idea quite liberating.
Once you stop expecting fulfillment from work, something remarkable happens. You stop feeling betrayed by Monday mornings. You stop taking it personally when projects feel pointless. The boulder is just a boulder. The hill is just a hill. And you? You’re just someone who pushes rocks for money.
The real life, the actual living, happens elsewhere.
My fulfillments are embarrassingly ordinary. I watch movies, sometimes good ones, often terrible ones. I read books that no one will ask me about at parties. I take walks that lead nowhere in particular, often with close friends, lost in conversation. Sure, I live in Paris, so these walks wind along the Seine or through centuries-old streets, but the point isn’t the scenery. It’s wandering without purpose. These aren’t Instagram-worthy occupations. They won’t go on a resume. But they’re mine, untouched by the logic of productivity or optimization.
There’s a line from a Young the Giant song about waiting for the cough syrup to come down. I think about it sometimes when facing any unpleasantness. Work, errands, social obligations that feel like work in disguise. It’s all just waiting for something unpleasant to pass, for the real life to begin again in those stolen hours between obligations. Some might call this defeatist, but sadly we live in a world where we have monetized passion, commodified fulfillment, and turned “doing what you love” into another form of exploitation. The most radical thing you can do might be to refuse to love your work, to withhold that final piece of yourself from the machine.
But hey this doesn’t mean doing bad work. Sisyphus, I imagine, was excellent at boulder-pushing. Professional, even. But excellence and emotional investment can be different things. You can be good at something without deriving your sense of self from it. The arts, those “banal” pleasures I mentioned, they’re acts of resistance. Every book read for pleasure, every movie watched without taking notes for a think piece, every purposeless walk is a small rebellion against a culture that insists every moment be productive, every hobby be a side hustle, every passion be monetizable.
I’m not suggesting everyone should adopt this philosophy. Some people genuinely find fulfillment in their work, and good for them. But for the rest of us, the ones pushing our particular boulders up our particular hills, maybe it’s time to stop pretending the boulder means something. The boulder will be there tomorrow. It was there yesterday. It’s there right now, waiting. But tonight, I have a book to read, a movie to watch, a walk to take.
We cannot escape Sisyphus’s fate. But we can choose what we think about while we push.
This isn't merely a substack, it's like a manifesto! So good.
Loved reading this!