SISYPHUS 55 - Interview

ETHEREAL.PRESS

Tell us about Sisyphus 55.

SISYPHUS 55

It’s a YouTube channel that is more or less a creative outlet for me to explore ideas, tackle personal issues and express my feelings. I started it when I was in high-school to explore existentialism and absurdism. Since then it has transformed into a more free-form video-essay/poetry channel. The one consistent identity behind the channel has been the use of stick-men as characters used to express most of my topics.

ETHEREAL.PRESS

You covered dozens of approaches to psychology, philosophy, and sociology on your channel. Did you have a particular thinker whose ideas resonated with you on a deeper level?

SISYPHUS 55

Well Albert Camus is the namesake of this channel (from his Myth of Sisyphus) so absurdism guides most of the ethos of what I discuss. His main idea, our rebellion against the absurdity of existence through lucidity and active optimism, has always resonated with me as a guiding principle in life (to seek the truth, even if it is destabilizing. And then to nonetheless assert that being, the mode of which we discover truth, is to be embraced).

I also quite like Gabriel Marcel’s “strange hope”, Byung-Chul Han’s work on art and love, and bell hooks work on politics and social issues.

ETHEREAL.PRESS

You often do book reviews on your channel, allowing your audience to catch up with what you have been reading.

Tell us a bit about some of your book recommendations.

SISYPHUS 55

Here’s a few I recommend to everyone:

Tao Te Ching  - A collection of wisdom that finds divinity in the duality of all. I try to read it most mornings

All About Love - Aside from a few poorly dated opinions, bell hooks really goes off in this book. Her main point is that love is a missing component in leftism and should be re-cultivated. I found her discussion on spirituality and self-love to be particularly insightful.

Existentialism as Humanism - Sartre makes a compelling link between existentialism and a larger focus on human dignity. Anybody interested in existentialism should check this out

Denial of Death - Ernest Becker, working on the foundations of Tillich, argues that everything we do is based on a denial of our mortality. From this, he suggests that evil is simply a product of our attempts to prove that our ‘character armour’ to symbolically evade death is the best one. Wade past his chapters on Freud and I think you’ll find one of the most important books ever written.

Myth of Sisyphus - Of course I’d put this here. It’s a formative book for me, difficult to read but I think entirely worth it.

The Defining Decade - Written by the clinical psychologist Meg Jay, this book should be recommended to anyone struggling in their twenties. Everything from love to work to identity is brilliantly explored here.

ETHEREAL.PRESS

Those following our publication may not know a considerable portion of our branding is inspired by Carl Jung's work - The Red Book or ' Liber Novus.'

Many who study him don't know that he was, in fact, a skilled artist; we've included some of his illustrations below.

Can artists use their shadow / unconscious as a source for creative pursuits?

SISYPHUS 55

That’s super cool!

The Red Book is beautiful and his art is really interesting. I don’t think you can be truly creative without engaging with your shadow (the shadow being those things you tend to repress).

For me, creativity is a sort of vulnerability.

You are actively casting out a piece of yourself to the world with a sort of faith that this will somehow answer something. This involves a certain openness or availability, to both the external and internal world.

That means you need to risk confronting those things that you might not like, especially about yourself. What is interesting is that it is those very things that tend to compose the peculiarity of great art.

ETHEREAL.PRESS

The internet serves as a source of substantial existential dread, anxiety, and depression. Several of your videos have discussed the modern condition associated with such a heavy reliance on the internet.

How can we most effectively take steps to mitigate the adverse effects caused by the internet?

SISYPHUS 55

We put too much blame on individuals.

Yes, we all should touch grass and log out. But much of our material subsistence relies on staying plugged in. I think a collective and radical demand for greater ethics in terms of AI, regulations on kids exposure to the internet, privacy and data collection should be targeted at these companies and governing bodies.

It’s a bottom up and top-down solution.

We all need to personally do better at monitoring our usage and intentions in internet use. And we also need to recognize that the larger environment needs to change if we are to avoid the sort of hyper-reality apocalyptic nightmare that Baudrillard and Huxley predicted.

ETHEREAL.PRESS

Science and spirituality are often at opposite ends of the spectrum for interpreting the world. Rarely (if ever) do you ever get any overlap between the two.

Photo by Brian Ulrich.

Meditation is one of the few practices to show practical scientific evidence in Buddhist monks, with changes in gamma waves between meditators and non-meditators + meditation can positively influence neuroplasticity in the brain(1). By this interpretation, Buddhists would attribute it to the spiritual, while those who view meditation as a secular practice would not.

Engaging in practices such as meditation from an interpretation devoid of religious doctrine has become increasingly popular for exploring spirituality. The 'leap of faith' we would make is that reducing meditation solely to mindfulness is mistaken and mischaracterizes a long historical tradition of the practice across cultures - while not disregarding the potentially problematic interpretations of religious doctrine that don't align with our modern understanding of the world.

Would you reduce meditation solely to mindfulness, or is there some type of spiritual (non-religious) experience associated with it?

SISYPHUS 55

Coming from a place of relative ignorance regarding the details the Buddhist doctrine, I would still argue that there is something deeply troubling about the “McMindfulness” that people are becoming more aware of - that is, mindfulness used in the service of improving productivity, well-being or focus.

We can see similar trends with yoga, which is used in the West primarily for physical fitness and mental wellness. These are of course great techniques and effective. But they also reinforce the neoliberal individualism that is only interested in individual self-actualization if it is in the service of creating more efficient capital-generators and circulators.

Being becomes a problem to be solved and these spiritual practices become potential solutions to these problems (the problem being “how to be happy”, “how to be more productive” and in the end “how to be profitable”).

Spiritualism tends to see being and life, not as a problem to be solved, but rather as a mystery to be encountered and engaged in. Thus, spiritual practices traditionally serve as attempts to engage with this mystery of existence, usually encountered in an experience of unity or awe - something deeply problematizing and destabilizing for our current economic system.

Yes, we can reduce meditation solely to ‘mindfulness’ or as a tool among many to increase efficiency. I would argue, however, that the true ‘benefits’ or purpose of meditation is still being strategically avoided and would welcome people to educate themselves more on the spiritual tradition behind these practices. And come to their own decisions.

ETHEREAL.PRESS

What advice would you give artists regarding a psychological, sociological, philosophical, or spiritual interpretation of making art?

SISYPHUS 55

There is a utility in boredom.

There is usefulness in just sitting with yourself. I made an argument that iPad babies are a troubling representative of our future. Studies show that these babies are engaging more and more in play that involves the manipulation of pre-existing symbols and images (epistemic play) rather than generating and imagining their own worlds and creations (ludic play).

They are becoming consumers rather than producers. Many of us now spend our time in similar “play”, scrolling and manipulating data rather than engaging in our own peculiarities.

The only way to do the latter is to get away from the noise, to see what is in the concrete around you. That means being present.

That means looking at the stuff you don’t like about yourself.

It’s uncomfortable, yes.

But I think the driving force behind good art is vulnerability and it’s hard to be genuinely vulnerable when you don’t give yourself the silence and solitude to feel this vulnerability.

ETHEREAL.PRESS

What are your thoughts on life?

SISYPHUS 55

It’s something that I’m doing for a little bit so might as well make the most if it.

ETHEREAL.PRESS

We love your animation style, especially with the filmatic, lofi, vhs aesthetic.

What inspires you to edit your videos is this manner?

SISYPHUS 55

The style is thanks to my amazing editor, animator and brother Housecat. He also makes most of the music.

Both of us grew up on the old Simpsons, and noticed the boiler effect that comes from repeatedly hand-drawing the same object. We also really liked old cartoons in general (pink panther, looney tunes, batfink, Scooby doo). And we also grew up on Wes Anderson so that’s sort of awkward , vintage style is something we were drawn to.

It serves a practical purpose since older media had pretty limited animation. So the audience doesn’t expect us to pull out Studio Ghibli level animations every video. Let’s call it intentional mediocrity draped in the style of nostalgia.

In the end, we want you to feel like your teacher just hauled out that TV on the cart and you’re going to watch some edutainment on VHS.

ETHEREAL.PRESS

What's next for Sisyphus 55?

SISYPHUS 55

I’m working on a larger, more personal project right now which I won’t give too many details about. It’s going to be fairly different from my usual content but will still retain all the themes I usually discuss. While I’m doing this I’ll be releasing content as usual.

I’ve slowed down the output lately just to focus more on quality.

SISYPHUS 55: YOUTUBE

‍