‘On a social level we have not changed as humans’

Who more, who less, everyone has heard of the myth of Sisyphus, one of the most famous protagonists of Greek mythology. That man who, for trying to defy and deceive the gods, was condemned to carry a rock to the top of a mountain for eternity. When it seemed that I managed to leave it up, it fell and I had to start again. Like this one time after another.

Motivated by the reflection of current Western society that is this myth, Pol Gisé, one of the greatest experts on this subject and author of the podcast Chisme mythológicohas launched into telling the life of this human in what is his third book, after the successes of Hades, the least evil god y Hercules, the hero who did not want to be.

In Sisyphus, the man who cheated death (Ediciones Temas de Hoy), this 32-year-old from Barcelona has once again demonstrated the striking way he has to narrate classic themes based on a current, fresh and modern language full of modern-day expressions. This characteristic form has made him a reference on social networks such as TikTok, where he has almost a million and a half followers on his @polgisemitologia account.

Gise, who has studied theater, wants to show that all the feelings, fears or concerns that humans have today The protagonists of these myths told in Ancient Greece already suffered from them.

How do you feel about combining a classic topic for which a more complex vocabulary is usually used with modern-day words and expressions?

When I began to delve deeper into Greek mythology, I realized precisely that in our current society we can continue to empathize with practically all the characters in Greek myths. That seemed very interesting to me, being able to empathize with mythological creatures that were written thousands of years ago in a completely different world, which is why it made me angry that the only thing that stood between these myths and current generations was language, because they are written in a more solemn and more complex way for someone who knows nothing of Greek mythology.

If you listen to my podcasts, for example, and then start reading the Ovid’s Metamorphoses You will understand it because it is not something indecipherable or cryptic, but rather it is only written as if the reader already knew the universe that is being talked about. You start talking about a God that you don’t know where he comes from, he explains it to you a little bit and you need that context.

Why have you opted for the myth of Sisyphus and not another for this third book?

In the three books I have, I first made a God, then a Demigod or hero and now I wanted a mortal. And for me the most human human in Greek mythology is Sisyphus because he represents everything good and bad about our species. All. He has his concerns, his fears and is moved by the basics of our species. For example, he is very afraid of death and seeks to be immortal, which is something that human beings have been seeking since our beginning, people seek to be immortal, eternally young and he wants that. Lies also appear, they use them a lot and today there are many things that happen that are based on the lies they tell us or how they use them to have more power, which is what moves them.

And then there is the famous myth, which should be called punishment because it only belongs to the end of its story, which is the thing about the rock. This was made very popular by the philosopher Albert Camus when in his book he said that in some way Sisyphus represents us because with his rock he continues to be our life in some way. You get up in the morning and start to work or move the rock and when night comes you are up with the rock at the top of the mountain and you dream that you will not have to push it anymore, that you will not have to work and that you will retire. , but the next day you realize that the rock falls and you have to start over.

Camus, in some way, explained with the myth of Sisyphus that we had to embrace the absurdity of our existence because it is what keeps us alive and what makes us continue pushing the rock. The question is, why does he keep pushing the rock if he always drops it? It is a very dark question because Camus talks about suicide among other things, but he says that you have to embrace the absurdity of life and that something has to keep you alive. What makes him keep pushing the rock? In the book he explains it and that is why Camus said that you have to imagine Sisyphus happy, because if he is happy we can too.

Who is this book aimed at or who is the audience that follows you the most?

There are all kinds of audiences. Very young people or adult people because these myths cover the entire population. I am read by people who don’t know about Greek mythology and people who know a lot, but who seek to have new points of view, I only try to contribute them. There is a young audience that is very present, but I believe that the majority of the population is between 20 and 40.

Precisely many people who are now between those 20 and 40 years old grew up playing games like Age of MythologyDo you have the feeling that he divinely brought that culture closer to the people and now that he has grown up he wants to know more about those characters?

Yes, people who played that game, who have played the God of War or what you have read Percy Jackson and the Olympians. It’s like they’re taking it back, that it’s something that belonged to their childhood or adolescence and now they’re coming back to it, that’s what I find a lot.

You have spoken before about lying and that thousands of years have passed and it is still present, is it something innate to human beings?

This is a bit Lord of the Flies, I couldn’t say it, but for survival you do anything and if to survive you have to deceive… Luckily I haven’t been in that situation, but when it comes to surviving a human is capable. to do anything.

It also seems that you make social demands such as Sisyphus having a lover who is a man, was this acceptable in the time of Ancient Greece?

Precisely at that time it was most common for men to interact with each other. Not because it was a more open society, people think it was an LGTBI friendly society and it is not like that. Men sleeping with men was like a form of admiration, of being able to be among them, of power. Something that was also very common and very dangerous was that there were older men who recruited younger boys and made them their apprentices and they ended up being their lovers.

Women were practically considered an object, they were not allowed to do anything and were seen as the means to reproduce and have sons because women could not inherit anything and only male men did. In the myth of Atalanta, she became a heroine because her father wanted to have a son and had a daughter, who abandoned her in the middle of a mountain so that wild animals would eat her because he could not kill her as it was a crime of blood. Then it happened that the goddess Artemis, turned into a bear, saved her, but the answer is that men did get together with each other, but not because they were more open-minded, but because it was from a more misogynistic point of view.

In the story of the myth of Sisyphus this relationship does not appear, but what I do when fictionalizing these myths, as there are so many blank spaces in the originals, I add parallel plots and link Gods to fill in these blank spaces and give it more strength and that the story has more things.

Do you think there is a lack of more classical philosophy or culture in schools?

What moves me most about Greek mythology, and what I think is what it could contribute the most, is that on a social level we have not changed as humans. We have had an evolution as a species at a scientific, technological or health level, but we continue to have the same problems, the same fears, there are still men who want to be gods, there is the same type of hatred, conflicts, etc. I think this would be interesting for schools or institutes. It can make us reflect and make us realize where we started, where we are, what journey there has been, etc.

In the end, you feel identified with a character, that’s why I always say that whatever you experience or suffer will have been suffered before by a centaur, a human, a God, a semi-God, a hero or any mythological creature. Right now Sisyphus is on everyone’s lips because there are many references to this savage capitalism and it is used a lot to reflect this new situation.

Has the culture of the gods been lost or is it still present in the sense that there are presidents, such as Netanyahu, who believe themselves above humans and seek to end a race or religion?

In Greek mythology, conflicts like that in Troy are not born to destroy an ethnic group, but rather because a queen, Helen, has been kidnapped. These things happen when a new or different religion comes and they want to put an end to this in some way, but the whole conflict between Israel and Gaza goes back many years and there is one victim who is Gaza and he is the one who is suffering the most from the conflict.

You have almost 1.5 million followers on TikTok, how do you become a popularizer of mythology and have these numbers?

I started making videos about the Bible as if it were a comedy series and I did it because my grandparents were very religious and very Catholic and it was very present in my life. I always say that instead of scrolling on TikTok, they scrolled through the Bible. That’s when people started asking me to do things about mythology and I decided to do the series. Greek sauce.

Then, a little more than two years ago, we were at a time when it was said that the only format that worked was short and highly edited because people didn’t watch more than a minute. I didn’t agree because this doesn’t make sense, then we see one-hour series and seasons, three-hour movies, etc. So that’s not true. Then somehow I was obsessed and I said I was going to make videos of more than 10 minutes walking through the forest and talking about Greek mythology, so you can say that it was to show that this was also seen and now I have a million and a half followers, so that they later say that long videos are not successful. It was also for that claim.

When did you start wanting to really investigate all of Greek mythology?

I started to delve deeper just before the pandemic. There it was already going to go deeper, well. Before I had more concerns. I studied theater, I trained as an actor and I realized that the most important works are based on Greek mythology. For example, Romeo and Julietby Shakespeare, is based on the myth of Pyramid and Tisbewhich only changes the universe, the families and instead of ending with a poison it is now done with a lion, but it is the same. It was when I realized that everything is written. However, this does not mean that what is now is boring, the fun is seeing in which situations we have these dilemmas.

Finally, do you also like and know mythology from other cultures such as Norse, Egyptian, etc.?

Of course, Greek mythology is the closest, I am Mediterranean and it is the one that reaches us the most, but I really like the Nordic one and it is more unknown but I like it. Also the worldviews of Latin America such as the Mayan culture, which was very different and very spectacular.

My head exploded when I read that they had a myth about the creation of humans that says that the first apes were those that remained from the first humans. They created wooden humans to admire the Gods, but since they were made of wood they lacked feelings and could not do so, so they decided to kill them with a flood, as all Gods of all cultures do. So, the wooden humans that survived were the ones that climbed the trees and these ended up being the monkeys.