Sisyphus in the Suburbs: Pushing the Rock

Abstract

Our final excursion before-COVID is in Upfield, where we push a Sispyphian rock around the suburbs, up its dark mountain of carbon-based culture, infrastructure, and underlying political economy, only to watch the rock fall down the other side. We are told by Camus that we must imagine Sisyphus happy and that we should let the struggle in an absurd universe fill our hearts. As we train to and from this once outer suburb (now merely in the middle of the city’s reach), we reflect gratefully on the activists who had fought to keep the Upfield train line open, a reminder of how cities are saturated with untold histories that are responsible for giving form to the urban landscape and shaping those who pass through them.