Sisyphean task

Reader question:

Please explain this sentence: “Dealing with diabetes can be a ‘Sisyphean’ task.” Sisyphean?

My comments:

Diabetes being the kind of illness it is, i.e. once you have it, you tend to have it for life, it is not difficult to see the similarities between dealing with such an illness and a Sisyphean task, the kind of job that troubles Sisyphus.

Sisyphus?

Sisyphus is a king in Greek mythology. He’s the one who is seen pushing a boulder up a hill in picture books.

Sisyphus, you see, is, or rather was crafty and unscrupulous, and had committed many wrongs and evils in his life. This much, from Wikipedia:

King Sisyphus promoted navigation and commerce but was avaricious and deceitful. He also killed travellers and guests, a violation of xenia, which fell under Zeus’s domain. He took pleasure in these killings because they allowed him to maintain his iron-fisted rule.

Sisyphus and his brother Salmoneus were known to hate each other, and Sisyphus consulted with the Oracle of Delphi on just how to kill Salmoneus without incurring any severe consequences for himself. From Homer onwards, Sisyphus was famed as the craftiest of men. He seduced Salmoneus’s daughter Tyro in one of his plots to kill Salmoneus, only for Tyro to slay the children she bore by him when she discovered that Sisyphus was planning on eventually using them to dethrone her father.

Anyways, eventually, as punishment Sisyphus was given the task of pushing a giant boulder up onto a hilltop. Whenever the boulder was up, however, it rolled down right away and so Sisyphus had to do it again and again, ad infinitum.

Hence, people liken repetitive and endless jobs of that type and nature to the unenviable job of Sisyphus.

In our example, the similarity between dealing with diabetes and handling a Sisyphean job is that they have to do it every day, i.e. keeping the sugar level in their blood stable by monitoring their intake of calories all the time. For Type II diabetes, patients can use insulin injections to help correct abnormal blood sugar levels but even then the task is not any easier. They have to watch the amount of insulin intake and they have to watch their diet still.

And the job is unending. Tomorrow, the process is repeated again.

There, the similarity ends, though. Even though diabetics have to handle their diets and everything everyday, they haven’t done anything evil. That’s the difference between diabetics and Sisyphus, let’s make that clear – just to be sure.

All right, here are other examples of people and situations that invoke Sisyphean comparisons:

1. Infectious diseases are one of the great success stories of medicine. Conditions that just a few generations ago blighted humanity are now easily treated or prevented. Mass immunisation programmes, improved sanitation and sterilisation technology, as well as advances in drug development, mean that, for those who live in the developed world at least, infections are no longer a constant threat.

When, in 1980, the World Health Organisation (WHO) announced that smallpox had been eradicated, the optimistic narrative that followed was that one day all infections would be similarly consigned to history. For a while this looked possible, but not any more.

Increasingly scientists see the battle against infectious disease as a Sisyphean task. No sooner do we gain control over one infection than another pops up, seemingly from nowhere. For many, the emergence of HIV in the late 1980s was a wake-up call, proof that hitherto-unknown diseases could become global killers without warning.

- Let’s not panic over a new virus, Telegraph.co.uk, February 24, 2013.

2. Despite recent strides worldwide, attempts to make cycling to work more attractive to commuters has been a Sisyphean task, much like convincing Americans to pay attention to football between World Cups.

Enter the sleek Jive bike from London-based Jam Vehicles. The electric-assisted folding bicycle systematically eliminates commuters’ traditional objections to getting in the saddle.

Arriving at work lathered in sweat? Not an issue, thanks to a 250w brushless electric motor, mounted inside the front wheel hub, which provides sufficient scoot for sustained 16mph travel. Dry-cleaning bills from a greasy chain and splattered mud? It’s covered, literally, courtesy of a chainless, mechanical drivetrain (a combination of shaft and belt drives) housed inside the frame. Can’t take it with you? You can. About 15 seconds is enough to collapse the 33lb Jive into what looks like a bespoke dually unicycle, for easy carrying in a train station or office.

The Jive consists of an aluminium frame, a lithium polymer battery that recharges in two hours via any electrical outlet, hydraulic disc brakes and wireless smartphone connectivity through Bluetooth. Yet another entrant in the competitive, build-a-better-mousetrap world of electric-assisted foldable bikes – the Mando Footloose and Gocycle have recently reached market – the Jive can travel up to 20 miles on a full battery charge and is operable in either full-electric, partial-assist or no-assist ride modes.

“Our objective was to make the sleekest and most beautiful bike on the market, so we covered the drivetrain and the two hinges that allow the bike to fold,” says Jam founder Marcin Piatkowski. “And because the drivetrain is encapsulated, it’s 100% maintenance-free.”

Piatkowski also notes that roughly 95% of the energy generated through pedalling is transferred to the rear wheel, a remarkable percentage. Over time, conventional bicycle chains become stretched, rusty and dirty, which reduces a bike’s efficiency to around 50% or 60%, he says.

- Jive bike is a folding ride for chic geeks, BBC.com, July 21, 2017.

3. More than 10,000 street cleaners are scrambling to clean a city that produces 200,000 tons of waste annually; but their job is a Sisyphean task.

In one uncharacteristically dry late morning in July of this year, three women with straw hats, waterproof safety jackets and plastic boots walk at their own speed alongside Roosevelt Avenue at the heart of Addis Abeba.

They are wearing the thick latex gloves they use while sweeping the streets; the empty pushcarts and the idle broomsticks, however, are being pushed, thankfully, by their colleagues who are a little ahead of them. The three women look slightly fatigued, but they seem to be enjoying the less demanding hours and less daunting weather.

When they arrived at the place around 5:00 am, leaving their houses an hour earlier, it was drizzling. As it is the rainy season this time of year, sometimes the day breaks with a downpour, making it unbearable to move, let alone deal with the garbage thrown overnight on the streets of a city, which six years ago was dubbed “the sixth filthiest in the entire world” by a Forbes Magazine rating. But they can’t afford to be late. They have to grapple with the most arduous parts of their tasks before the hustle and bustle of life seizes the day.

Equipped with cleaning appliances provided by their employer, the Addis Abeba City Sanitation Administration Agency (AACSAA), they started their crusades against litter on the respective roads they were assigned to.

“We are particularly aware of the prominence this area holds,” says Selamawit Gebrewold, 38, one of the three women, pointing towards the US$ 200 million worth office of the African Union (AU) headquarters standing a few hundred yards away. “A lot of diplomats and leaders pass through it. So we are extra careful to keep it clean.”

That “extra care” involves inspecting each and every inch every now and then, looking for trash thrown out by careless drivers, walkers by or households; sweeping it meticulously, collecting the junk uncompromisingly and finally taking it to the metal containers nearby where the neighborhood waste is amassed before it is driven to the city's waste disposal landfill.

- Ethiopia: Cleaning Addis Abeba - It Is a Sisyphean Task, AllAfrica.com, October 21, 2017.

About the author:

Zhang Xin is Trainer at chinadaily.com.cn. He has been with China Daily since 1988, when he graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University. Write him at: zhangxin@chinadaily.com.cn, or raise a question for potential use in a future column.