Soundscape #17: I Can't Go On, I'll Go On

Vik Muniz. Sisyphus, After Tiziano, 2005.

There is no fate that cannot be surmounted by scorn
—Albert Camus, The Myth Of Sisyphus.

The figure of Sisyphus is a powerful metaphor for all our lives, something we can all relate to. If you've been through any kind of routine for any length of time, you'd know what I mean. Don't get me wrong though, I don't mean that a routine has to make one feel a certain way (do you find comfort in a routine or feel burdened by it?) What I mean is that just being alive condemns you to a life with the balls and chains round your ankles.

The curse of a routine is not that you have to do the same thing over and over but that you cannot hope to have any sort of a stability, a construct, or a context without it. If we believe Derrida, nothing will make sense or have any meaning without repetition, seeing how everything derives its meaning from everything else. So I guess when it comes to routines, you're fucked if you do, fucked if you don't. And if we think about it somemore, the only way we can know that we are doing something (eat, sleep, work, repeat) over and over is cos we are conscious of it. Consciousness—that which separates us from animals—is both a curse and a gift. Although we are cursed with yokes round our necks, the mere knowledge of it should lighten the weight just that little and make us more human.



Playlist:
1. (0:00) Bright Eyes - At The Bottom Of Everything (Buy I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning)
2. (4:33) Bedhead - The Rest Of The Day (Buy Beheaded)
3. (10:53) Editors - Fall (Buy The Back Room)
4. (15:58) The Decemberists - Eli The Barrow Boy (Buy Picaresque)
5. (19:09) The New Year - One Plus One Minus One Is One (Buy Newness Ends)
6. (23:33) The Wrens - This Boy Is Exhausted (Buy The Meadowlands)
7. (27:52) Manic Street Preachers - From Despair To Where (Buy Gold Against The Soul)
8. (31:14) Finch - What It Is To Burn (Buy What It Is To Burn)
9. (36:07) Yo La Tengo - (Straight Down To The) Bitter End (Buy Electr-O-Pura)
10. (40:04) Arab Strap - There Is No Ending (Buy The Last Romance)