Sisyphean

Ruminating on a fragile world

The damn big burly elephant is stomping its elephant foot impatiently in the middle of the room.

We have etched out a little space beneath it to sit and have a cup of tea.

The window glass rattles in its frame.

You ask about work but I wasn’t concentrating,

Your head is very close to a big, swinging elephant dick.

“Yeah, it’s still very quiet,” I say remotely because I don’t want your sympathy.

I don’t want to pretend.

“That’s tough…”

And I know it should be, but it’s absurd to care right now.

I cop a trunk to the side of the head.

The elephant agrees.

It’s tougher for you.

My obstacle is mundane.

My obstacle has a place in polite conversation over tea;

A reasonable cause for my languishing.

I can’t ask about yours,

Not without mentioning the ten tonne you know what, in the you know where.

We were always already dead.

Impolite to discuss,

But harder to ignore it now.

We’ve been living with our neighbours while we do some work on the house. Michael likes words. A few months back we were discussing ‘Sisyphean’. I learnt about Sisyphus studying Ancient Greece. He’s the one who angers the gods and is punished with an eternity pushing shit uphill, literally. Well, figuratively because it’s a myth and because it’s a big boulder and not actual shit. Once he’s hauled it up, it rolls back down again with him following after, all dark and grizzly. And on he goes again back up the hill with the boulder x eternity.

When something is Sisyphean, it is both laborious and futile, and a tragedy because Sisyphus is aware. Philosophers get right into this one because it’s uncomfortably familiar. Raise your hand if this is uncomfortably familiar.

You might have come across the word ‘languishing’ recently. It’s having a moment. It describes the shitty feeling of stagnation when we can’t make progress in spite of our efforts. And then, why make the effort at all? Or do anything that isn’t mandated by the gods? A real Sisyphean problem this one.

There’s a big fucking elephant in the room. You probably got that from my attempt at poetry. It was subtle. I was warming up the crowd.

We all know we’re going to die, hopefully, a long time from now, pleasantly and when we’re good and ready. I want that for you. Most of us try not to think about it too often but right now, the world feels more fragile than usual. Suddenly, I’m just a little less freaked out by dudes with doomsday bunkers. Maybe that’s a reasonable thing to do?

And whether it’s climate catastrophe or class wars or race wars… I think who knows? Maybe it could all come down in a fiery wreckage. We’re riffing on the theme of fragility, deep in it like when I’m up late stressing, mad out of my mind and sure it will never end – the morning might as well be Timbuktu. Time isn’t relevant in a crisis, not really, it’s like being five or off my tits on acid.

For a minute there, I thought I might just be the only one wondering if I still care about the things I used to care about, or anything. What is really holding us all together anyway? If we are still together? And for how long? Almost everyone I speak to is lost right now though some struggle for good, polite reasons to be. Everyone gets a few lines in to explaining it before checking themselves, “…but really, things could be a lot worse. I have it better than most.” It matters that you still have work and comforts and healthy kids and money in the bank until you’re up at night worrying about the world being fragile. That however, is an impolite reason. Be robust. Be confident. Have another cup of tea.

Chickens and Eagles. We had a business coach once who used to talk about chickens and eagles. I’m sorry by the way, things always get weirder when I’m writing after midnight.

The chicken is down in the long grass, busy pecking away in the day to day. The chicken is highly focused on the details. It stays busy and steady but can become lost easily. The eagle travels far quickly with its eyes always on the horizon. The eagle sees where it is going far into the future and can course correct. It can swoop for an easy kill but it’s not one for toiling on the ground; getting its claws dirty.

To mix metaphors, again, the chicken can’t see the forest for the trees. It’s ‘type A’ douchebaggery to call yourself an eagle and it turns out the joke’s on them. Sure, the chickens get lost in the weeds and get turned around in circles but it can be quite pleasant to lose yourself in the details of the forest, maybe find a moment of quiet flow…

I’m spending more time in my workshop now and it’s all details. I’m occasionally frustrated by my slow progress on a piece of furniture but I’m always a little sad when I finish.

Where you rushing to eagle? The distractions are all we have and the end of the road is death brosef, so take your time.

Camus wrote about Sisyphus that all life is meaningless. Death is the only certainty. Everything else is a fantasy. Don’t be hopeful. Don’t try to make sense or meaning from the chaos. You didn’t want to get stuck chatting to Camus at a party.