The Burden of King Sisyphus

Greek mythology tells us that the Gods punished King Sisyphus for his vanity.

For all of eternity he must heave a heavy boulder up a hill, only to have it roll back down, so that he must repeat the task. His existence is an eternal loop of a burdensome action.

According to Wikipedia, modern tasks that are both laborious and futile are considered Sisyphean.

What is the modern Sisyphean fate?

I wake up and manically check my phone for urgent emails and urgent messages. Rinse and repeat. Urgency ends with a funeral.

I lie in bed and watch TikTok or YouTube or SnapShit, late at night, the glowing screen frying my brain. I lack sleep but I am up-to-date. I can’t miss the latest, I can’t miss anything, the dopamine is so lovely! I must constantly check. I must constantly unlock the phone. Rinse and repeat.

I will compare myself to my social media network. They’re traveling where!? How did they find the money? I need better photos to keep up with the Joneses. I need better statements to show my social value, to be up to par again, to have “likes.” To have the most “likes” when I’m dead… will that have left behind a legacy? Will I have made my mark?

Our media and mundane tasks can deliver us a Sisyphean fate if we are not careful.

The Sisyphean fate ensnares the victim in a reactive state. One reacts to a boulder too heavy to manage. The boulder taunts with weight and gravity and the lifter cries eternally, determined to try again and again. To post again, to work again. I’m so close to having enough. Lifting gives dopamine. “I moved it a little and it felt good.” The lifter is merely a programmed response mechanism, constantly lifting, constantly checking the boulder, constantly exasperated that the hill is just too damn high.

How does one escape the Sisyphean fate?

Seems easy to me: stop trying to lift the boulder and own your own time!