I'm a CBC Radio 2 listener and have been for a long time. My car radio is tuned to Radio 2, and so is my bedside clock radio. Music and Company is my morning program, keeping me company as I get ready to go to work. I changed to the fm station when I could no longer tolerate the inanities coming from the current morning host on the CBC Radio 1 station in the city where I live.

Radio 2 has just made some major changes to its programming and most of it is great. Jazz in the 6pm slot, and live Canadian concerts at 8 pm. I like all of it. As I write this blog, I'm listening to new streamed radio to the 6 o'clock show Tonic on Mountain time. I think it is wonderful although I do miss World Report. As well some of the 8 pm concerts are also on the website, so I'm planning to listen to Serena Ryder tomorrow, because I missed that part of the concert the other night.

The only problem is I'm not supposed to like all these new programs. Reading the news reports on all this new programming I find that the target audience for CBC Radio 2 is the 29-49 year old age group, and I'm nearly 60!!

So sorry folks I'm eavesdropping!

Sisyphus

"I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one's burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

-from the Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus

When this quote first caught my attention, I read it as a expression of hope, and I immediately related it to the efforts of those social justice activists who face enormous obstacles and powerful opposition in their efforts to establish a society that is more equal and more compassionate. Their goals are often like Sisyphus' rock, always rolling back down the mountain.

I am not very familiar with the works of Camus, and only on further investigation into the topic I discover that Camus' premise is that Sisyphus is an absurd hero as he goes about his futile and profitless task. Sisyphus is condemned by the gods to this the task of rolling the rock up the mountain, he has no choice.

So perhaps my first reading of the quote was a misreading, yet, when Camus says that "Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks" I think he speaks to the idealistic endeavour of humans to make the world a better place. There is happiness to be found in working towards goals that may never be attained. If you never give up you can never lose.