The Higher Fidelity
“I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks.” ALBERT CAMUS · THE MYTH OF SISYPHUS
Camus ends his essay by walking away, leaving Sisyphus at the bottom of the hill about to start again. The exclamation mark is his own. He is not being sad about it.
One always finds one’s burden again. It is a flat statement of the rule, and it applies well beyond mythology. The thing you resolved has come back. The house is untidy again. The habit you broke has returned. The argument you settled has resurfaced in a slightly new form.
Then comes the phrase worth carrying with you. Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks.
Fidelity means faithfulness, and Camus calls this kind higher because it is owed to nothing above you. Sisyphus is not loyal to a god, a reward, or a promise that the hill has a top. He is loyal to the rock and to his own continued effort. That loyalty is precisely what denies the gods any power over him. They can set the punishment. They cannot make him stop, and they cannot make him bitter.
Take up something you have already taken up before, without complaining that you have to.
