Work, Fail, Repeat: Contemporary Life and the Enduring Myth of Sisyphus

The Jung Center presents Work, Fail, Repeat: Contemporary Life and the Enduring Myth of Sisyphus.

Do parts of our lives feel like endless cycles of meaningless effort? In Greek mythology, Zeus punished Sisyphus—who was deceitful and thought he was as clever as the gods—by requiring him to roll an immense boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down. In other words, a never-ending cycle of effort, failure, observation, repetition. Small wonder that we still describe an onerous task as a Sisyphean ordeal.

Friday night’s lecture will focus on how the myth of Sisyphus is alive in contemporary culture, with attention paid to how the distinct elements of the myth (deceitfulness, effort, failure and repetition) have been split apart and apportioned to various subsets of societal groups.

In Saturday’s workshop, we will focus on the way this story plays out in an individual life. During the workshop we will use lecture, discussion and experiential exercises to discover how the Sisyphus myth might be alive in each of us. Our goal will be to try and discover the meaning and purpose of our “rock”.

All rock-pushers are welcome!

Anne Strain, LCSW, is a psychotherapist in private practice and a candidate-in-training to become a Jungian analyst in the Inter-Regional Society of Jungian Analysts.