#2: Sisyphean Tasks
Late on a Tuesday afternoon in New York in September 2019, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson gave a speech to the United Nations General Assembly that was characteristically dishevelled, much like his suits and his hair.
Amongst the various mystifying allegorical references he’d chosen to wow the UN crowd with, he couldn’t resist dropping in an analogy from Greek mythology, presumably to prove to Stanley that the school fees had been worth it after all.
“When Prometheus brought fire to mankind in a tube of fennel, Zeus punished him by chaining him to a Tartarian crag while his liver was pecked out by an eagle,” he droned.
“And this went on forever. A bit like the experience of Brexit in the UK, if some of our Parliamentarians had their way.”
Whether Boris was expressing his own frustration at the interminable drudge of “getting Brexit done” or trying to convince the nations assembled before him that as a man of the people he represented the general mood of the British public, I’m not sure.
He wasn’t to know it then, but he was probably very relieved that his liver only had to be pecked out for just a few more months when he subsequently won the general election in December 2019. He finally had the political oomph to drive Brexit through Parliament in much the same way as he had driven a JCB through a polystyrene wall in a publicity stunt two days prior to election day.
Of course, neither Boris nor anyone had heard of Covid-19 at that point. There were some curious reports of a strange virus surfacing in China at around the same time. But here in the UK we all thought we could now simply put the whole Brexit business behind us and head for the promised sunlit uplands whilst having a nice cup of tea, waving our Union flags in a jolly fashion and waving also to the squadrons of Spitfires flying in jubilant formation over Buckingham Palace.
Fast forward only two months and Boris started getting his liver pecked out again, but this time by Covid. Well… at least when he bothered to turn up for meetings.
I wrote this blog on 20 March 2021 (even though I’m just getting around to posting it in May), which marked a year since my last day actually physically at the office and so my first anniversary of shielding by staying at, and working from home.
Back then we weren’t familiar with the jargon, but now we all know the meaning of terms like lockdown, self-isolation and shielding. Regardless of the nature of the restriction those different words impose on us, poor old Prometheus comes to mind again when I think about how they can all be measured by the amount of time I have spent at home over the last twelve months. Or how many times I have actually ventured outside of the house in that time.
It might even be in single figures.
Like Brexit, a year later the tedium of Covid has now reached the same level of interminable drudge with no real end in sight, even with a vaccine. Boris might have a better hepatic prognosis these days, but now it’s my liver the eagle is coming for.
To be fair, having one’s liver pecked out daily by a bird of prey has got to be excruciatingly painful. I can’t say that I am experiencing any similar physical anguish. The suffering is psychological. Even then the main challenge is dealing with boredom, although I have to admit as time goes on the feeling of isolation and disconnection from other human beings is starting to have a noticeable effect.
If I had to pick a Greek myth of my own, then I’d probably go for Sisyphus.
Sisyphus was king of Ephyra and by all accounts a nasty shit. He also had a talent for frequently pissing off gods and being punished for it. Unsurprisingly once he eventually died and ended up in the underworld, he continued to annoy Hades. As the ultimate punishment, Hades made Sisyphus roll a large boulder endlessly up a hill.
The boulder was enchanted so that just before he reached the top, it would roll away and he’d have to go back down and start over. Again, and again. His fate was to be an eternity of useless endeavour and endless frustration. Even today we refer to neverending or pointless activities as Sisyphean tasks.
I feel a bit like King Sisyphus, trapped in an unending succession of Groundhog Days in my own interminable drudge. Having the same day again and again. Repeating the same tasks over and over.
Like all good Greek tragedies, Prometheus and Sisyphus are tales of woe laced with never-ending suffering and misery, but there are some salutary lessons to be drawn here.
First of all, if you ever meet any gods, don’t piss them off.
Second, there’s always someone having a worse day than you. My liver isn’t being pecked out. Nor do I have to roll a stone up a hill every day.
Or… maybe I do?
It’s amazing how a year of self-enforced shielding can provide some clarity and perspective. It has given me time to think about things that ordinarily I wouldn’t have time to think about. You can re-evaluate your life with that kind of extra time.
It occurs to me that things are not really all that bad. I have a roof over my head, I have electricity and gas. Warmth. Hot running water. My internet is still connected, the phone works, the TV seems to have the same hundreds of channels I never watch. Food and wine are reliably delivered each week by a nice man in a mask. There’s a good supply of toilet paper. The zombie apocalypse isn’t on the horizon just yet.
Of course, all those things are possible because I’m paying the bills. Which brings me to the next realisation: I am incredibly fortunate to still have a job. Not only to still have full-time employment, but to be able to work from home and continue shielding these last twelve months.
Many friends and colleagues have not been so lucky. The pandemic has meant many job losses and I know that many are struggling to find work and they are struggling financially. I am grateful that I have kept my job and that I can continue to do it from home while protecting my health. So I really can’t complain about the tedium of not being able to find anything good to watch on TV.
The German government summed this up perfectly in November 2020 with a series of tongue-in-cheek adverts that humorously praised couch potatoes for doing their bit to contain the spread of the virus. The men being interviewed are elderly: “The fate of this country lay in our hands,” one man says. “So, we mustered all our courage and did what was expected of us, the only right thing.”
Given their advancing years and the fact it is being watched in the present moment, the viewer is led to assume a reference to some past heroic deed or sacrifice made when they were younger men; when I saw it for the first time I jumped to the conclusion they were talking about the Second World War… until the line, “We did nothing. Absolutely nothing. Our couch was the front line, and our patience was our weapon.”
It also confirmed something I already knew from personal experience: Germans are actually really funny and have a great sense of humour, despite outdated stereotypes to the contrary.
So there isn’t really too much to complain about.
But it’s also made me realise that it really doesn’t make any sense to carry on doing the things that are pointless. There are definitely things in my life that are Sisyphean.
The same tasks performed over and over again that bring me neither enjoyment nor satisfaction. Yet I do them anyway. On autopilot.
Hmmm. Maybe it’s time to do something about that.
Sisyphus (1548–49) by Titian, Prado Museum, Madrid, Spain
