You Are Not Atlas, My Friend
The world does not rest on your shoulders
You know the Atlas statue? The one in front of Rockefeller Center in NYC? It’s magnificent. Cast in bronze, Atlas stands strong. Knees bent under pressure, arms spread wide, he carries the entire world on his shoulders.
The story of Atlas goes back to Greek mythology. Fun fact: He’s not actually holding the earth. He’s holding the sky, or what the Greeks called “the celestial sphere” — an orb made of a 5th element (quintessence), contained in which are all the stars.
So why does Atlas have to hold up the heavens? Well, he was on the wrong side of history. In the Titanomachy, the fight between the Titans (old gods, Cronus and friends) and Olympians (new gods, Zeus and friends), Atlas sided with the Titans — and they lost.
Most of the Titans were banished to Tartarus, the prison in the underworld, but Atlas received a special punishment: Hold up the sky for eternity.
Atlas’ story remained so popular over the next 1,500 years after its inception, a 16th century geographer titled his collection of maps “atlas” — a term we still use today, as evidenced by my very own 2002 copy of the “Diercke Weltatlas,” our cartography book in high school.
