Remember the Myth of Sisyphus? Poor sucker, Sisyphus, condemned to roll that giant rock back up to the top of the hill again, and again, and again, because the damn thing kept rolling back down. (Do you also remember the high school English class where you squirmed in your seat while the teacher quoted bits from Edith Hamilton's Mythology? Ah-hem: "Let's begin on page 24 with, "The Myth of Sisyphus.") The memory of the high school English class, of Hamilton's dry-as-crackers book, and the myth itself makes me marvel at how I ended up first an English major and later a high school English teacher.
With all that is published in the world, how is it that the best we can summon into the curriculum is the Myth of Sisyphus? What bleaker life can there be to present to a bunch of 17-year olds? Maybe it's included because sitting at that school desk, and later in/at your cube at work you will identify with the mythological man. I don't know if its heat or the humidity ("it's the humidity") that's got me in such a funk thinking about Sisyphus, but it seems lately that despite my best efforts I simply cannot get to the top of the hill. I'm in a slump, stuck on a slippery slope, with Sisyphus. (Can you say that five times real fast?)
What happens if you lift Sisyphus out of his own myth, secure the boulder at the top with a couple of 2-by's and offer him a Sam Adams for his hard work? What would the man do? Well, he could meet up with Sir Isaac Newton and talk gravity, or he could visit remedial English classes and encourage kids to "stay in school." He could even stop by my house, knock at the door and tell me to post my blog on Thursday's, get some exercise, and eat right in order to avoid his fateful forever. And you know what, if he stopped by I'd probably invite him in.
"If this myth is tragic, that is because its hero is conscious. Where would his torture be, indeed, if at every step the hope of succeeding upheld him? The workman of today works everyday in his life at the same tasks, and his fate is no less absurd. But it is tragic only at the rare moments when it becomes conscious." - Albert Camus
