The Three Fates

To be perfectly honest, I'm having trouble grasping what existentialism truly is. JED talks about how existentialism usually questions humanity's existence, but i found that on this website existentialism is defined as a philosophy that "assumes that people are entirely free and thus responsible for what they make of themselves". This certainly combats the previous concepts of free will and pre-determination. Also- ideas about fate and how we never can be in charge of our own choices since it is also planned out for us by fate. Who knows, maybe the three fates do exist and they are weaving our lives together with a bunch of colorful threads. Our lives and deaths are in their hands. Unlikely, but in my mind, not completely impossible. But more on that definition that I found, I like the part about how people are responsible for what they make of themselves- this is definitely true. Just like how Sysiphus makes his own conscious choices and is responsible for his own actions and therefore for his own punishment of being forced to push this rock up the hill forever and ever and all of eternity! His is also conscious of his fate when he watches the rock roll back down the hill. I found this part about what Camus was saying absolutely fascinating: "he is superior to his fate. he is stronger than his rock. if this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious."  This may seem random, but this concept of how it is tragic because he understands and is conscious of his ever-lasting fate, reminds me of this story that we read in spanish called San Manuel Bueno Mártir where it talked about la cruz del nacimiento (literally: the cross of birth). Basically, our original sin of being born makes life tragic if we are conscious of this fact because we will always go through life knowing that we can never escape sin. It's connected because of this concept of being conscious of our punishment or our sin- therefore making life tragic. Granted, this is just my opinion. The rest of what Camus was talking about definitely went over my head a little bit... Something about Absurdism  and happiness being "two sons of the same earth." What does that even mean??