“O my soul,
do not aspire to immortal life,
but exhaust the limits
of the possible”,
Findae, Pythian III.
Sisyphus was a wise and prudent man that offended the gods. His sin was exploring their secrets to human advantage and earthly passion in a manner that scorned the gods. As a penalty, he was handed the task of rolling a large rock up the top of a mountain – for keep. Fair deal, Sisyphus must have said to himself. After all, a community service is better than capital punishment.
So he went to work to get it done. Rolling a huge stone up the mountain is an uphill task. With more muscular push and pull, moan and groans, soiled palms and torn feet, sweaty drips all over, he managed to roll the monster to the top. A sigh of relief mixed with breathe of fresh air on the mountain top. He was to congratulate himself then the rock resumed motion – this time in reverse direction. Sisyphus, awestruck, watched the large stone pick faster momentum on its own weight and back to base with a bang. After cursing and self-motivation, Sisyphus resumed the routine till it was nightfall. “I am not in the mood today. I will deal with it tomorrow,” he said. The morning after was refreshing, self-assured and equipped with strategy to end the cycle. But hundreds of stone rolling tasks, day after day, and weeks into months all ended with the rock back on the plain.
Hasten not to blame Sisyphus for not trying harder. Homer’s account did tell us that he tried everything possible. In today’s terms, he is motivated type. He listens to audio and pod casts of motivational speakers over his car stereo or headphones as he embarks on his futile labour to the summit. He would have taken some time off to fast and pray harder or acquire some degrees in mountaineering and material science, even up to the doctoral level. He could as well set up a tech-savvy company; employ all manner of professionals and boardroom gurus to roll up the stone in perpetuity. Having stayed too close to the rock, and become experts in rocky business, the workers have become rocks too and absurd heroes of their CEO. But each morning, Sisyphus still finds his stone ready for him on the ground – not where the gods want it.
French philosopher, Albert Camus, reminisced in the 1955 work: The Myth of Sisyphus how modern lives have not departed from Sisyphus’ fate, its struggle and absurdity. Europe of his age was in turmoil following the World War II and brutality of the Nazis. Human faith was at its lowest ebb if not entirely lost. Men became aliens in a society that offered no hope or moral guidance. Camus, a Nobel Prize Winner in 1957, took cognizance of Sisyphus’ resilience in the face of seeming meaninglessness of life.
It is safe to say that Sisyphus saw through the plot of existential absurdity and the futility of the rock-rolling task. He could have in his self-abnegation and sorrow recoil to resignation. He could give up the toil or explore suicide – in defeat. Gethsemane nights are never devoid of suicide thoughts. But such extreme wouldn’t take the monster of a stone anywhere or sway the gods from awaiting him in the yonder. He saw the futility of suicide too – his loss, the rock’s gain.
Camus fancied Sisyphus’ continuous scorn at the gods by returning to the rock each time it fell off the cliff. In their consciousness of the mad exercise, Camus and Sisyphus recognised that the rise of melancholy is the rock’s delight, if not the rock itself. It is that recognition and its resistance that springs hope eternal and happiness in the arduous ungodly task – to try one more time and with lesser sorrow than Sisyphus started. As Camus puts it, hope teaches that all has not been exhausted. In fact, “it drives out of this world a god who had come into it with dissatisfaction and a preference for futile sufferings. It makes of fate a human matter, which must be settled among men” and in the here.
Today’s world is not any better than Sisyphus’ uphill task or Camus’s Europe in the 1950s. More than ever in the last 100 years, the modern world faces an existential crisis and horror that has held the entire humanity spellbound. What is modernity without schools in session, big or small businesses, trade and commerce, religious centres, crusades and call to prayers, travels to and fro, live football matches and betting games, betting centres, sites and their fantasy wealth, concerts, funeral or weddings, pubs, strip clubs, owambes and other distractions to douse the mortal suffering of rolling recalcitrant boulders? This pandemic shows how much the social structure and institutions can fail us. For once, it exposes the limitation of sciences and unreliability of organised religions alike. How come science and technology failed in its predictions? How come our spiritual leaders, televangelists and diviners that often claim to have direct access to omniscient God failed to see the coming of the worst pandemic ever? What is certain is that the coronavirus pandemic has grossly disrupted civilization and normalcy, yet the looming socio-economic depression is just as scary.
However, human existence in this world has never been normal. So, there is no normal life to return to or crave. Before and after World War II has the world being in disarray. Here in Nigeria, we had our own civil war and life has been topsy-turvy afterwards. In the last three decades, the in-thing was HIV/AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. Their public health awareness has faded since cancer proved to be more lethal and irascible killer – not discriminating between the young or old, rich or poor, good or bad. Indeed, it is not a normal world where the rich get richer and poor poorer, the haves have more while have-nots are mere numbers on the misery index. A divisive humanity where the rich are treated for constipation and poor die of starvation, famine and anguish is not normal. A polarised world that barely distinguishes between war and peace times, or one where the democratically elected turns out to be both incompetent and corrupt on the same day and perpetually get reelected to oppress the electorates the more, can also not be a normal world. It is as absurd as Sisyphus’ daily suffering up and down the hill.
So, we have to live with the new normal and with the Sisyphus syndrome too. The existential angst cuts across the board for all men and ages. Human intelligence has only succeeded in dimensioning and categorising them with labels. It is also a manner of sizes and how well individuals cope under its weight. We only solve a problem to wake up to another, like Sisyphus welcomes his rock the following day. Above all, it is our fate to be saddled with up-the-mountain tasks. The challenges are ours, and we must own them without losing ourselves. Sisyphus never did.
There is no doubt that mistakes were made by acts of commission or omission in handling the ravaging coronavirus disease. But the time for blame game and pity party is behind us. As a people, we are at the junction of either resistance or submission to the tyranny of nature – or is it of the gods, devil, America, China, homegrown abysmal leadership, or all combined? The right decision is the resistance of tyranny in whatever shape and colour. We can resist the exercise of bad faith, melancholy and depression in the struggle against modern absurdities. By looking inwards and depending on our inner strength, we can roll the stones over and scorn our oppressors. The night may be long and very dark, but if we faint not at mid-night, the glorious light awaits us at dawn. Sisyphus is back at the mountain, as Camus remarked. We must face ours too with defiance. Ire o!
Dr. Oyebade is a member of The Guardian Editorial Board.
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