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Sunday
Apr222007

Sisyphus

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on - Omar Khayyam

Then the Moving Finger comes back,
And re-writes - Doug

You remember old Sisyphus from Greek mythology. The poor guy in Hades doomed to roll the big rock up the hill only to have it roll back down just as he reaches the top. Condemned for all eternity to keep pushing that darned rock. I'm thinking about him this weekend as I  look over the handouts and slides for my upcoming workshops and presentations in Saskatoon and Chicago.

sisyphus_cartoon.jpgLittle did I realize when I signed on as author, as speaker and as consultant that nothing I wrote or prepared for presentation would stay written, stay prepared. A talk I created what seems like only moments ago, turns out to be two years old - ancient in Internet years. (If one dog year equals seven human years, one Internet year must equal at least twenty human years.) This basically means that every handout and every set of slides and every bit of content needs to be reviewed, revised and updated every single time I go anywhere. Once in a while I will miss something in my talk that is a couple years old and really embarrass myself. I hate it when that happens.

Where was the warning that once one has written a book, one has a life-long obligation to keep cranking out revisions? My books came out in 1997, 2002, 2003 and 2004. And they all need revising again. I've been putting this off for years now to the extent that my publisher isn't speaking to me any longer. If you pride yourself in being a lazy person like I do, writing books is not for you!

Or write fiction. Now there is writing that once writ, stays writ! I just finished Cormac McCarthy's allegorical The Road. No names, no dates, no technologies mentioned - only a bleak landscape populated by starving survivors of some unnamed cataclysm, all described in gorgeous language.  Depressing enough that every 11th grade English teacher will slap it into his/her curriculum for years to come and royalties will flow into perpetuity. McCarthy is a smart guy.

If you want to write a book, write a potboiler or a "modern classic." Trust me on this. 

Cartoon source unknown, but I like it.

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Reader Comments (1)

I vaguely remember a college philosophy prof explaining that the myth of Sisyphus should not be seen as tragic, but as an explanation of the fulfillment that comes from accepting your fate and doing the work anyway. Every time he reaches the top of the hill, he can be perfectly happy, knowing the he has reached his goal, and will do so again shortly.

Guess there's two sides to every rock! ;-)
April 22, 2007 | Unregistered Commentersylvia martinez

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