It took the gods a few years to notice Thanatos’s absence. People stopped dying and the earth became crowded and noisy. So they sent Ares, the god of war, to free Thanatos and bring Sisyphus to the underworld.

Sisyphus had anticipated something of the sort. He instructed his wife not to perform funeral rites after his death. So when the gods asked why there had been no funeral rites and no sacrifices, Sisyphus apologised and asked permission to return briefly to earth to remind his wife.

He never returned. It took gods some time to realize that they had been tricked. Again. When they showed up at Sisyphus’s house, they discovered a party, drunk guests, beer and pizza everywhere - and Sisyphus overjoyed that he was the only mortal who tricked death. Twice.

To say gods went mad is to say nothing. Getting Sisyphus to the dungeon was no longer enough. They sentenced him to something they thought was worse: rolling a boulder up a hill only for it to roll back down every time it neared the top.

They gave him what he wanted - immortality - so that he would see that he was afraid of the wrong thing. It is not death we should fear but a meaningless life.

A meaningless life, apparently, is labour without a result you can see or touch. The ancients believed that the greatest suffering is the realisation that your efforts are futile—leaving no mark, no change, no trace. There is nothing for meaning to cling to, and life itself fades into emptiness.

Yet the result is so remote as though there were no result at all.

The uncomfortable reality is that, according to research, 40% of people in the UK believe their work is meaningless. They are trapped. “Without work, all life goes rotten,” said Albert Camus, “but when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.”