Camus opens by declaring that there is only one truly serious philosophical problem: suicide. If life is absurd, why not simply end it? The essay proceeds to argue for revolt, for embracing the absurd without despair. Sisyphus, condemned to roll his boulder eternally, must be imagined happy. Camus wrote this during the Occupation, the same year as The Stranger, working out the same ideas in essay and fiction. The prose is philosophical but never academic. The absurd hero faces meaninglessness without flinching. We must imagine Sisyphus happy. We must be Sisyphus.