HANDS:
hands
hands title:
§1. The Hell
hands date:
18 April 2022
hands text:
His scorn of the gods, his hatred of death,
and his passion for life
won him that unspeakable penalty
in which the whole being is exerted
toward accomplishing nothing.
and his passion for life
won him that unspeakable penalty
in which the whole being is exerted
toward accomplishing nothing.
01
Sisyphus was a king of Corinth. He was smart. And he was courageous to the point of insanity.
02
When his time came he tricked Thanatos, the god of death, and chained him in Tartarus, a dungeon of torture. Let me repeat. He tricked the god of death, leaving him chained in a dungeon.
03
It took gods a few years to notice the absence of their fellow mate: 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.
04
Sisyphus anticipated something of the sort. He forbade his wife from performing funeral rites after his death. So, when gods asked him why there was no funeral and where the sacrifices were, Sisyphus apologized and asked if he could return to Earth for a short time to remind his wife about the sacrifices.
05
He never returned. It took gods some time to realize that they had been tricked. For the second time. When they showed up at Sisyphus’s house, they discovered a party, lots of drunk folks, beer and pizza all over the place. And Sisyphus overjoyed that he was the only mortal who tricked death. Twice.
06
To say gods went mad is too say nothing. Getting Sisyphus to the dungeon was no longer enough. Now 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.
07
We tend to interpret the story by saying that Sisyphus was punished with "meaningless labour.” But what is "meaningless labour,” exactly?
08
Apparently, this is work without a result you can see or touch.
09
The ancients believed that the greatest suffering is the realisation that your efforts are futile, that the universe is indifferent to your existence.
10
We can speculate, of course, that there may be some result in the end. After years of rolling the boulder, perhaps hundreds of years, the hill might eventually give way and a road could appear. The result, however, is so remote as if there is no result at all.
11
The sad reality is that, according to research, 40% of people in the UK beleive that they engage in meaningless labour. They are trapped. “Without work, all life goes rotten,” said Albert Camus, “but when work is soulless, life stifles and dies.”