Word: sisyphus
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...Sisyphus was the fellow who spent all his time in Hades pushing a huge rock up a hill only to have it rill down gain as soon as he reached...
Camus' point seems to be that the world makes no sense, that life as it has to be lived by human beings adds up to almost exactly nothing. In an essay called The Myth of Sisyphus, he once asserted that the only important philosophical problem confronting humanity is that of suicide. The Stranger, despite its simple and vivid writing, is about as negative and futile...
...machine-tool makers, first U.S. industry to be called a bottleneck, have worked like Sisyphus* to get out of that category. In two years they boosted their payrolls from 43,000 to 110,000 men, their deliveries from $200,000,000 to $840,000,000 (1939-41). By Pearl Harbor they had reached a delivery rate of $100,000,000 of machine tools every month...
...Because he double-crossed Pluto, Sisyphus in Hades was made to roll a big stone up a steep hill forever. Just before he reaches the top, the stone always rolled down again...
...best of my recollection, abetted by contemporary research, it was Sisyphus who was the Greeks' most futile lapidist, not Tantalus...