Sisyphus and Prometheus

These two Greek legends personify law school.

Sisyphus-Pushing a boulder up a mountain, only to have it tumble down the side again, and is forced to push it up again. The process continues through eternity.

Prometheus-Has his liver eaten out once a day, every day, by an eagle (or vulture depending on your bard). He gave fire to man... Zues, can we say "Over reaction."?

How do these relate to law school, one may wonder at this point.

With Sisyphus the obvious connection can be made with the futility of the exercise. Sisyphus rolls a boulder up a hill repeatedly. We read cases, repeatedly. He watches as the boulder rolls back down the hill. We watch as the teacher's decimate our thoughts (yes, you pseudo-dorks, one in ten of our thoughts are destroyed, just like the Roman legions). What is more telling has to be what Sisyphus thought as he rolled the boulder up the hill. Albert Camus made the extraordinay point that the myth speaks to the futility of life. The first chapter (the very first issue) addressed, is whether life requires that man commit suicide (stick with me here, the gravy train keeps rolling. Suicide, kids, never has been and never will be the answer). Why, then wouldn't Sisyphus allow the boulder to sit at the bottom of the hill, waiting endlessly for the man tied (metaphorically) to it in punishment, and just give up? Camus takes the most bleak route possible: feeling content, for Sisyphus, relies upon the knowledge of hopelessness. Not that the task is enjoyable, nor that any hope persists in his mind. It is precisely because he knows the limits of his existence that Sisyphus can be, to Camus, truly free.

I take issue with this idea. Knowing your limits, first, represents the end of exploration. The human mind has been created, by millenia of evolution (or a spark of ingenuity by some creater, pick your poisin) to expand upon current knowledge, experience, emotion, whatever! That is our purpose. Law school has not, as of yet, harbored this purpose. Thus far, no knowledge has been gleaned. Rules, definitely; logic, absolutely; but knowledge has eluded me thus far.

So, is law school as depressing as this? Well, yes, it is, but only because of the unending task (our eternity lasts three years). But, despite the lack of knowledge, we have been tested every day. We are shown our limits, and expected to break free. I don't know how Camus could be satisfied with his answer. We aren't set free in the acceptance of our existance, our unending task. We are set free by the hope that Camus argued so furiously against. Hope brings potential for the chains to break. Then again, unlike Camus, I don't believe there is a limit to the human spirit within each individual (No, I will never be able to run like Michael Johnson, but maybe I can think like Camus). Nobody can decide that for me, and my own failures to press beyond, into the ethereal unknown represent my only limitation.

Now that I have gotten this far, I don't especially care to think about Prometheus. You can do that one on your own.