"In ancient [[Greek]] myth, the gods punish King [[Sisyphus]] for his arrogance by sentencing him to push an enormous boulder up a hill, only to see it roll back down again, an action he is condemned to repeat for all eternity. **In the contemporary version, [[Sisyphus]] would empty his inbox, lean back, and take a deep breath, before hearing a familiar ping: “You have new messages…**” “**It gets worse, though**, because here the goalpost-shifting effect kicks in: **every time you reply to an email, there’s a good chance of provoking a reply to that email**, which itself may require another reply, and so on and so on, until the heat death of the universe --- **Tags** -- [[quotes]], [[teaching-anecdotes]], [[work-life-balance]], [[attention]], [[infinite-scroll]], [[ever-present-now]] **Source** -- [[202410130434 - B - Four Thousand Weeks]]