I Have Chronic Memory Loss As Part Of My Disability And Was A Poor Kid Who Was VERY Into Ancient Greek Lore. So I Truly Have Tried To - Tumblr Posts

"one must imagine Sisyphus happy" has taken on a whole new meaning to me tonight and i am trying not to cry about it

my cat keeps trying to bring me her mouse-toy on a string, like she normally does to "show me what a good hunter she is" by dragging her cat-wands over to me for some rewarding coos and pets. but this new toy is attached to the opposite side of the room as me, im stuck on the couch due my health, and my cat can never bring her toy all the way over to me because the string doesn't extend that far and she's forced to go get it again just to try and fail to bring it to me once more :'(

maybe one must imagine Sisyphus as an earnest, eternal optimist; completely devoted towards what he has to do. because i grew up being told (an apparently unusual form of the story?) that Sisyphus and Hades made a deal; if Sisyphus can accomplish his impossible punishment, Sisyphus can rejoin the form of the afterlife where his loved ones are surely still waiting for him to arrive (because he wasn't truly doing evil things; he was a cunning trickster, fucking with the gods like how the gods fuck around with humans. that's balance, baby. maybe Hades admired his moxie)

Sisyphus has people he loves that he'll see again once he gets that boulder up the hill. tomorrow is a new day, the past was a good attempt. he has an eternity to get this done. the boulder has to fall down the hill every time in order to stop Sisyphus. but he only needs to get it to the top once. and then, much like the end of a brutal marathon, all this hard-work will be worth the pride, loving rewards, and victorious security he will also "have to take on for an eternity". therefore: one must imagine Sisyphus' dedication as a sign of having lived a life where he's been very well-loved ♡

video transcript and further context (+ product link) if desired is below:

transcript (or transcript + context, i guess?) of the sounds within the video: the news is playing on the tv in the background. the cat's many bells are jingling with every movement (we are hard-of-hearing and her many bells help us figure out where she is as she likes to be sneaky). my mom was muttering sympathetic encouragement about my cat's goal to give me the mouse on the string even before the video started and the cut-off-beginning plus the part the video did catch was something along the lines of "[She's going to do it, she's going to get it—] to you, go back, oh no!" as my cat is forced to let go of the toy-mouse due to how the toy retracts and drops and retracts the mouse. you can hear my voice much more clearly than my mom, and i am cooing at my cat "Oh-ho-hohh" in sympathy as she loses the mouse and i try to comfortingly say "It's okay, Allegra, Sisyphus is very happy!" and then i giggle-squeak at the last syllable. then the video ends and loops over again (much like Sisyphus really when you think about it lmao rip)

context of "who is Sisyphus": Sisyphus is a figure from Ancient Greek lore. to over-simplify his story to only the most relevant parts here: Sisyphus caught and chained up the Ancient Greek version of the Grim Reaper during his life to stop any deaths from happening, and when Death got free and later on Sisyphus was supposed to die— Sisyphus then used some more tricks to get to live a longer life with his family. and he also did some other stuff to fuck with the Ancient Greek gods, bc he's of the cunning trickster archetype, even before he even caught the not-the-Grim-Reaper-but-basically-the-Grim-Reaper Death guy. and when Sisyphus did finally for sure die with no take-backsies, he had to go to the underworld's An Afterlife Of Eternal Punishment Section. his punishment was to push a huge boulder up to the top of a hill, but the twist is that he can never make it to the top of the hill as the boulder always finds a way to roll back down, thereby making Sisyphus have to re-start a ton of hard-labor from square one again and again for eternity. part of how i personally was told the story of Sisyphus was that Hades (who is the God of the Dead, but not the "Ancient Greek version of the Grim Reaper" Sisyphus chained up) had motivated Sisyphus to want to do this eternal punishment again and again without stopping?? was all because Hades told Sisyphus that Sisyphus could go be with Sisyphus' loved ones in the afterlife once he accomplished getting the boulder to the top of the hill. (which i took with the same ambiguity as the classic conundrum of "Did Hades know Orpheus would inevitably fail when Hades and Orpheus made that deal? Or did Hades give Orpheus as fair a shot as Hades could for a task that, on basic principle, HAD to be something Orpheus would have to struggle terribly with to accomplish?") so Sisyphus' eternally rolling the boulder up no matter what then becomes a sentiment to how dedicated and loving he is. that's not the version most people apparently grew up hearing about Sisyphus apparently tho, as i have learned the hard way back when EVERYONE in one of my bigger college classes (where we were discussing Camus) turned towards me VERY CONFUSED when i compared Sisyphus' form of loving devotion as a foil to Orpheus' lmao

context for the "Sisyphus is very happy" and "one must imagine Sisyphus happy" lines: there was a famous philsopher Albert Camus who said, in regards to the aforementioned story within Camus' essay "The Myth of Sisyphus", his conclusion is "one must imagine Sisyphus as happy". to which Camus means, in his own interpretation of Sisyphus, the moments when Sisyphus is (temporarily) unburdened by his punishment as he walks down the hill and knows tomorrow what he will do but that for now he has freedom from his tormenting chore— those moments of levity from the absurdity matter, the relief matters and keeps him going, and makes Sisyphus happy. to apply this to real life, if you have an awful and physically draining job with a terrible commute both ways, sure, you could mope around in bed and rot with exhaustion everyday. but going out with friends in spite of your bone-weary tiredness, enjoying a really good book or show, laughing over your pet being silly? those absurdities give life meaning. even if your job and commute are terrible, those moments where you have a bit of freedom and can forget about your metaphorical boulder and hill due to sheer and blissful relief you feel? that's Sisyphus' happiness. that's why people quote that line so often: "one must imagine Sisyphus happy", it's very iconic. there are other interpretations of what Camus meant, im sure, but this is the one i have and it is ergo relevant to the logic applied for what i am saying within the video and whatnot

context to me and my cat (why am i not meeting her halfway, why do i have this toy, and more): i am disabled due to chronic illness/es involving being in some level of pain 24/7. sometimes, i am in too much physical pain to play with my cat (who is named Allegra, which i did not know was a real name; i named her after the allergy medicine, and thought i was doing the equivalent of naming her Claritin). but she needs stimuli. so ive been experimenting with automatic toys for the days where i can't play with her. one of those toys is this rechargable door/edge-hanger toy that has a string you tie a toy to. for 15 minutes, it changes both height and pace as it makes the toy attached on the string go up and down, and it even does short pauses to mix things up and keep the cat interested; then it takes a break for 5 minutes; and then it starts up for another 15, before finally shutting off. it takes 2 hours to charge, and then is good for 4 hours of play. (my only complaints are that it came with a charging cable without a plug included; and that the toy doesnt retract when it shuts off, i have to roll the string back up manually. still a 9 or 9.5/10 so far tho) it's basically an automatic cat-wand; and it comes with three mice-toys to optionally tie to the string (that are advertised as having catnip but i doubt that lol) and a back-up string. it's a great toy for my cat, who fucking LOVES cat-wands and normally hates automatic toys that don't need a human hand involved

but, yeah, Allegra is very clingy to me as "the emotional support human to an emotional support animal", because she used to be a stray who stalked me until i adopted her (yay, cat distribution system). she's been with me for several years now and is very happy. she just also likes to show-off to me and "give me food" from her "hunts" (it's only ever her cat-wands. it's never something that was once alive lol), likely because she is concerned for my health mixed with her being anxiously attached to me and my praise. i love her very much ♡

also, after this video i did try to sit by Allegra so she could give me her toy. but she was fully uninterested in the toy BECAUSE i was there and i could be giving her pets instead. i was in too much pain to stay there for long, because i needed to elevate my legs on the couch to get some pain-relief after accidentally over-exerting myself earlier that day. also, the toy cannot be hung closer to me because the toy's clamp you use to hang it? it cant open very far and our walls are WAY too thick. in the video (i think you can see it even), it's actually hanging on the side of the closed door of this set of double-doors. also, this is a very new toy for her; this was the second time we had ever brought it out. and this video was taken on the first day my cat tried to bring me that mouse-toy, though the video is not of her first attempt of said day. Allegra tried to bring me that mouse-toy, i think, about six or so times overall that day lmao i feel/felt both very loved by her and also very bad for her. she is just the sweetest cat lmao ♡