Sisyphus had an attitude problem

Let's stop and think about this one for a moment. Sisyphus was doomed to roll a boulder up a hill for eternity. The minute the boulder reached the top, it would roll back down again immediately, and he would have to start over. He could not cease his torment, nor could the boulder ever reach the top.

Zeus punished him thus for his hubris in tricking the gods. Sisyphus died not once, or twice, but THREE times because he was so sneaky. When Thanatos, the god of death, tried to chain him, he convinced Thanatos to show him how the chains worked. This resulted in the god of death being imprisoned, and no one dying for a good long while. "Consequences will be dire."

I'll bet he got pretty cut after a while, eh? Low caloric intake, constant use of stabilizer muscles, etc.

It was on my way into work today that I realized that I hate the treadmill. Run as fast as you can, just to stay in place. I don't mean a physical treadmill that you use at the gym - even that has a point. The metaphorical, sisyphean treadmill that is the job market. Everyone is scrambling to get low-income jobs to get experience in a field. The field you want requires experience, so you can't get a low-income job on the ground floor until you have experience. You go to school to get experience and a good knowledge base for your field - and by the time you're done, you have so much debt it's hard to get a place to live, let alone a career you want. Somewhere along the line, you're expected to find a partner with which to limp along with, and do it all over again with your kids.

Something is missing. Something isn't right. Life is consistently giving us lemons, and we're not doing anything about it but flooding a saturated market with lemonade. We need to break out of the mold, Cave Johnson-style.

Can the myth of Sisyphus give us perspective on this? Definitely. King Sisyphus was punished for being clever by being doomed to repeat the same action for eternity. He was literally too clever for his own good, and was stuck in monotony for all time.

If this is the outcome to be avoided, then we have to try at all costs to break out of these ruts. Change what's happening in our lives.

Viktor Frankl spoke of logos, the meaning to life. When people told him they were suicidal, he would ask "what do you have to live for?" Not in a cruel or derisive way, but in a way meant to provoke thought. It turned out that the people who were suicidal could not see reason to live. They had, in essence, become Sisyphus. Locked into the same actions, the same cycle, with no reason to break out.

Evidence of this type of psychology at work can be seen in the program in Federal prisons that gives inmates puppies to train. Inmates almost universally reported a change in demeanor, and felt that their prison time had changed in aspect during the program. Cell Dogs, giving meaning to someone without it.

Where is the meaning in your life? Does it have one? I'm still looking for a good one, but that in itself can be a logos. Something that Frankl tried to get his patients to understand was that for mankind, searching for meaning could be meaning enough to move on.

Maybe I just need to find something to do with those damn lemons. Where are my eggheads?