One of my summer jobs during university was with my hometown’s public works department.
It was an eclectic four months, with tasks ranging from helping repair water main breaks to sealing street pavement cracks.
A memorable day in late May found me in a ditch just outside of town collecting garbage that had blown off the backs of pick-up trucks and trailers while on the way to the dump.
It was part of an effort to spruce up the community before anannual beauty contest with a neighbouring city. However, I couldn’t help but wonder at the futility of such an exercise if residents weren’t going to be required in the future to put a cover over their truck boxes and trailers to keep garbage from continuing to blow into the ditches.
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Without that simple measure, I surmised, we’d be right back to square one the following year.
It was my first encounter with what one might call the “useless task,” but it wasn’t the last.
For example, I’ve often wondered how demoralizing it must be to help write all those encyclopedia-sized government reports making recommendations on a variety of worthy causes, only to see them stuck on a shelf and quickly be forgotten.
That’s what I call a useless task.
But now someone might have come to the rescue.
Performance artist Victor Pilon recently turned his considerable imagination to a fascinating question: is it is possible to find happiness in a useless task?
He drew inspiration from the Greek mythological hero Sisyphus, who was condemned to roll a boulder up a hill every day, only to watch it roll down again every night.
Pilon’s twist on this ancient story has been to fill a corner of the Olympic Stadium in Montreal with 50 tonnes of sand and then spend seven hours a day, six days a week, for 30 days, moving it from one pile to another with nothing but a shovel.
Because he’s an artist, the entire enterprise was packaged in high drama: stark lighting, stirring music and theatrical movements.
Spectators were invited to visit the stadium and watch Pilon as he went about creating his art.
So the next time you’re mired in the meaningless of it all, remember Sisyphus and Victor Pilon, and see if you can find some joy in that useless task.
