Sisyphus Realized

Day 1,923, 13:21 • Published in Canada Canada • by Muglack

As I sit here contemplating the last few weeks of eCanada's past I'm quickly reminded of the toils and tribulations of Sisyphus.

In Greek mythology Sisyphus was a King whose deceitfulness earned the ire of the Gods and as a result was punished to push a boulder up a hill. Normally this wouldn't be impossible to overcome, but in addition to his deceitful ways Sisyphus was also guilty of incredible hubris. He saw no reason to adhere to the truth and thought himself so cunning that he could deceive the Gods themselves. As punishment for this hubris Zeus enchanted the boulder so that whenever Sisyphus approached the top of the hill, he would lose control of the stone, and it would roll back to the bottom of the slope.

The end result was that no matter how hard Sisyphus toiled and struggled to push the boulder to the apex of the hill, and no matter how much sweat, blood and effort was given to finish the task laid upon his past crimes would inevitable haunt him and result in his failure.

The parallels to our current situation are frightening.

eCanada is Sisyphus reborn. We were guilty of great hubris. We thought ourselves above the punishment of the Gods and sought to prove our dominance over the eUK only to have those mightier than ourselves cast us into Hades.

Slowly we toiled refusing to accept our fate. We fought, screamed and howled against an unrelenting tide as it rolled across our nation and swallowed region after region.

When the inevitable nature of our situation became clear we changed tactics. Instead of trying to stop the onslaught we sat back and watched it ravage us. We hoped that by showing our bellies instead of our teeth those who sought to punish us would confuse our laying in wait for submission and they would either forget about us, or be drawn away by a different foe. As expected by some our enemies saw through this ploy, and only tightened their grip.

With the smokescreen of our faked contrition easily dissipated by those who now kept us under thumb a new strategy was implemented. All of the built up rage, anger, and hate which we built up during the previous phase of our systematic conquest was unleashed in an attempt to build momentum and in one Herculean display of strength that we could force our boulder to the top of the hill and rid ourselves of those by whom we are now controlled.

Once again in our hubris we underestimated our opponents. They knew what some of us apparently didn't. The hill is much taller than it looks.

Then we were summoned on high. Whether our actions amused our overlords, or made them pity us I don't know, but whatever their motives they offered us an advantage. For a fraction of what we just spent to push the boulder up the hill only to have them slap it back down they would build for us a ledge. In fact that truth of the matter is that over half the cost of the ledge could have been almost immediately recuperated with the gold resulting from a Congressional election.

Did we as a nation consider this offer, and think through the advantages and disadvantages of accepting the offering? Of course not. Our dear friend hubris once again reared his ugly head. Instead of logically deciding what to do, or even politely declining, the members of this community who are supposed to represent us essentially spit in their face and while doing so pointed to our temporary success pushing the boulder up the hill telling them that there was more where that came from.

That was over a week ago. Since that time the boulder hasn't moved. Our backs have grown weaker, our strength has faded just a little more, and some members of our community have begun to lose hope. The people who are supposed to be organizing and motivating our population have gone silent, and when asked about progress or future plans we're not even given breadcrumbs.

If we continue down this path my friends the future is truly bleak.