And when the work piles up and stress builds, finishing yet another paper can seem as meaningless and frustrating as pushing a stone up a mountain.

The completion of each week’s assignments signals only a brief reprieve until the proverbial stone rolls back down and the assault of the next week’s work begins. Faced with a seemingly endless cycle of problem sets, papers, and midterms, many Harvard students can relate to Sisyphus’s plight. Every time Sisyphus reaches the summit, the stone rolls back down, forcing Sisyphus to begin the task again. In his essay, The Myth of Sisyphus, Camus recounts the story of the mortal Sisyphus-condemned by the gods to roll a stone up a mountain for all eternity. As a recent Crimson column explains, Harvard students may be more likely to struggle with “certain basic issues of existence: mortality, freedom, isolation, and meaninglessness.” For a potential answer to our existential woes, we should look to the writings of the absurdist philosopher Albert Camus. Crushed under the weight of demanding course loads and extracurricular activities, most Harvard students would admit that, at least once, they have questioned the meaning of their toil-or wondered whether their efforts are truly worth it all. At the center of all this existential introspection is Harvard’s overworked student body. Wracked by recent debates on the decline of academic integrity and deficiencies in mental health services, Harvard is in a period of soul-searching.

Camus and the myth of sisyphus