sisyphus trend?
phil woods, one of my favorite sax players, used the word “sisyphus” in an album title when i was in high school. that’s probably the only reason i know what the word means, since i now tend to purposely ignore even slightly rare words as inefficient; sure don’t consider knowing them a virtue. even when curiosity strikes and i look up a strange word, these days i ensure that it’s only in the shortest of short term memory slots. IMO, vocabulary and geography rank among the top overrated data stores. capital of north dakota? far from giving a damn, i actively prevent that and millions of other Count Crappula tidbits from entering my head for more than 30 seconds. so here’s the weirdness:
i get that it’s common after learning a new word to then notice it all over the place, but i’ve known about sisyphus since high school, and haven’t forgotten it (him). so why would i have, in less than 2 days, heard that word or variations of it in three different podcasts by apparently unrelated authors? usually, it’s once or twice a year for the ol’ sis. did someone famous use it recently? chance? sign from above/below?
October 28th, 2007 at 13:18
I once knew a guy who thought he was going crazy because every time he learned a new word he kept hearing it everywhere, and he came to the conclusion that his mind creates reality. I tried to explain selective attention to him but I don’t think he understood.
Coincidentally my friends made a mini-game about Sisyphus: http://www.greatgamesexperiment.com/game/sisyphus
October 28th, 2007 at 13:19
The link didn’t go through, so here’s the html tag.
October 28th, 2007 at 14:18
i don’t play RPGs, but if you get a sec, would you mind throwing me a brief description of your friends’ game? though curious, i’d like to avoid download, install, addiction, etc.
October 31st, 2007 at 04:01
There’s a description at the link, but here: it’s not really a RPG, it’s more of a joke game, it was made in a few days and takes a few minutes to an eternity to play. Any button you press pushes the rock up. When it gets to the top it falls down. Repeat forever. You can’t escape the game either, the only way to exit the game is to shut it down externally.
October 31st, 2007 at 13:00
thanks. exactly what i was looking for.
October 31st, 2007 at 14:04
It has a very narrow audience. :D
November 1st, 2007 at 17:09
William: “Who was that hero who was condemned to push a rock up a hill and every time he got it to the top it rolled down again?”
Sacharissa: “Someone who needed a wheelbarrow?“
Mark Odell
November 1st, 2007 at 18:07
i now know more about terry pratchett than i figured i would when i awoke this morning.