Word: sisyphus
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...years ago, is bundled in a military shirt and heavy work pants, plodding up and down a freeway embankment in the piney woods near his home. Foreman isn't just climbing the steep hill. He is maneuvering up it backward -- up and back, up and back -- a modern-day Sisyphus, sweating and straining in the heavy grass. As he moves, the old fighter hurls jabs and uppercuts at the blazing sun with his prodigious arms...
...know why they did it. Maybe because I wouldn't fight the way they wanted me to fight. They wanted a fight they could win. And my way of winning was just to hang in there." He refused to be a sissy, so he would be Sisyphus...
...Sisyphus, I. I cling to my rock, you don't have to chain me. Stand back! I roll it up -- up, up. And . . . down we go. I knew that would happen. See, I'm on my feet again. See, I'm starting to roll it up again. Don't try to talk me out of it. Nothing, nothing could tear me away from this rock...
...through my reverie: "Is everything clear?" "Right you are," I answered smartly. "The new version will be on your desk this afternoon." Back in my office, though, it was hard to concentrate. The little cursor on the blank computer screen blinked incessantly, like an accusing Cyclops. I felt like Sisyphus, endlessly, futilely pushing a rock up a hill. Oh, that I were Nabu, the Mesopotamian god of writing and destiny, whose powers could alter the days allotted to men in this life...
...truly disadvantaged are being made to play the role of Sisyphus, with public policy makers condemning them for failing to-reach the top. Until it is recognized that like in that ancient parabale, the failure lies beyond the control of the individual, a solution to the problems of the inner city will never be found...