la condition humaine
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
As I stumble out of the bedroom and into the teetering pile of household crap – toys, books, babygros, half-eaten bowls of cereal, small but pungent socks – that confronts me every morning, I wonder whether the myth of Sisyphus isn't just an illustration of some sort of metaphysical man flu. I mean, he only had to shift the one rock, right? And he probably didn't have anyone clinging to his leg and wailing while he was doing it, either.
These reflections on the human condition remind me of Becca's reaction upon first seeing Ice Age, when she was two. The film opens, you may remember, with a protracted sequence in which the very Sisyphean rat-squirrel goes to elaborate and physically improbable lengths to safeguard his nut; finally just when he manages to hold onto the thing he is suddenly stepped on by a migrating mammoth. On this occasion, however, as the unfortunate creature was borne away squealing on the underside of the mammoth's foot, frantic, heartbroken sobbing erupted from the direction of the sofa: OH NOOO! HE NEEDS A CUDDLE FROM HIS MUM!
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