Feb 25 • Perspective & Meaning
Lessons from Ages Ago
I’ve always loved Greek mythology. It was a natural progression from my first love: comic books.
I spent a lot of time in hospital as a child because of a club foot. It was the 1980s. There were no tablets or streaming services. There were books. I devoured comics. Heroes who were big, strong, brave. Everything I felt I wasn’t. From there, I moved into Greek mythology and consumed it obsessively. At 10 years old, we were given a personal project at school: write to someone connected to your interest. Some the boys wrote to Manchester United or Liverpool. Others wrote to the Welsh Rugby Union.
I wrote to “Professor of Greek Mythology, Oxford University.” Somehow, a real professor replied. He praised my knowledge, wrote to my school and parents, and I was given a special assembly and mam had never been prouder. They presented me with a book: Children of the Gods by Kenneth McLeish.
It was the most graphic book I had ever read. The opening pages detailed Cronos castrating his father Ouranos. For anyone, never mind a 10 year old it was intense. Crazy stories of fighting, sex, murder, politics, deception and the celebration of wit, cunning and intelligence to go with strength. But it stayed with me.
To me, mythology is a glimpse into the raw psyche of ancient people. Unfiltered. Honest about violence, chaos, love, and fate. Which brings us to Sisyphus.
In Greek myth, Sisyphus is condemned by the gods to push a boulder up a hill for eternity. Each time he nears the top, it rolls back down. Endless effort. No completion. No reward.
It’s hard not to see depression in that image; You try, you improve, you relapse but you must start again. Never from the sample place as you have the experience. You never step in the same river twice.
But in his book "The Myth of Sisyphus" , Albert Camus offers a radical reinterpretation.
Sisyphus is only defeated if he despairs. If he accepts the task, if he owns it, then the gods lose their power over him. Camus ends the essay with a line that has echoed through existential philosophy ever since: “One must imagine Sisyphus happy.”
Not because the task is pleasant. But because meaning is chosen. Owning Your Lifetime
What if Sisyphus, instead of cursing his fate, finds something in the act itself? That if pushing the rock becomes his rebellion?
What if the same applies to us? Life, especially with depression, can feel repetitive and unfair. You push. You fall back. You try again. But you still got what everybody gets. A lifetime Not someone else’s. Not the idealised version you see online, yours. And if that’s all we’re given, then the only real power we have is how we inhabit it. You may not control the length. You may not control the terrain but yan can choose to put one foot in front of the other. You can choose to find small meaning in the effort. You can imagine yourself happy, not because everything is easy, but because you are still here.
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Lessons from Ages Ago
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