Life In Richard Taylor's The Meaning Of Life

Richard Taylor, an American philosopher and author of, “The Meaning of Life” believes you can live a meaningful life as long as you realize your will and are completely involved in it and enjoy it, then you are no longer needed and your life was a successful one. “This is surely the way to look at all of life- at one’s own life, and each day and moment it contains; of the life of a nation; of the species; of the life of the world; and of everything that breathes” (Taylor p 27). He proves this through the ancient myth of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was sentenced by the Gods to spend an eternity rolling a stone repeatedly to the top of a hill and once it reached the top, it would roll right back down once again. Taylor calls Sisyphus’ life as an “endless pointlessness.” Taylor relates human life to Sisyphus’ life. He believes that both of our lives can have meaning. Taylor asks us to look at Sisyphus’ story in a different way. For example, while the Gods sentenced him to rolling this stone up a hill for an eternity, what if they gave him a “strange and irrational impulse” to roll the stone repeatedly. Now, according to Richard Taylor, Sisyphus’ life would now have meaning and if we were to be as invested as Sisyphus in rolling the stone, then our lives have meaning as well.

Because Sisyphus betrayed “divine secrets to mortals”, he was sentenced to continuously rolling a stone up a hill and when it came down, he would have to roll it up again for an eternity. “We have the picture of meaningless, pointless toil, of a meaningless existence that is absolutely never redeemed” (Taylor p 20). Sisyphus struggle cannot even be redeemed through death or exhaustion. His sentenced is irreversible and there is no way out of this depressing and dark life. There is absolutely no hope for him, just more of the same. His reality is his nightmare that he can not be awoken