The statue of Atlante Farnese (the Farnese Atlas) , preserved in the archaeological museum of Naples, Italy, is a powerful marble sculpture dating back to the 2nd century AD.
It depicts the Titan condemned to carry an enormous sphere on his shoulders—the punishment inflicted by Zeus for his revolt against the father of the gods.
Atlante Farnese
The posture of the body is striking, with bent knees and a torso that seems on the verge of collapsing. Not only the arms but also the head are strained in the effort to support that enormous object.
There is one detail that never ceases to amaze me: Atlas is not only overwhelmed by the great physical effort but also by a genuine despair, betrayed by his marble eyes that know all too well they are destined never to see what they can sense the weight of.
The sphere that the Farnese Atlas struggles to hold on his shoulders is not our planet, as it appears in other depictions of the Titan. It is, in fact, the entire celestial vault, the spectacle we can observe above us on starry summer nights.
According to mythology, Atlas was punished by Zeus and forced to support the sky on his shoulders for eternity, without being able to gaze upon it.
Thus, the punishment is twofold. There is the weight to bear and the lack of comfort in being able to see, evaluate, or understand what that burden is. An ancient metaphor still used today in reference to the human toil of bearing the weight of the world, whose meaning often eludes us.
What makes the work remarkable is the detailed representation of the constellations, as described by the skilled Greek astronomers. However, Atlas looks downward and cannot appreciate these details. He is forced by his position to focus on what he already knows, unable to explore and understand what lies above him.
Zeus was quite refined and cruel in determining the punishment for one who had dared to rebel against him: in addition to the physical suffering, Atlas endures the eternal torment of not being able to focus on what he would like to know.
Our condition is not so different from that of Atlas. We carry a new world on our shoulders that only seems less burdensome and difficult to bear. It's the enormous amount of information coming from our always-connected devices that gives us the feeling of being (or being able to be) always updated. And yet, like modern-day tech Atlases, crushed under the weight of data, we can do nothing but keep our gaze fixed, unable to see or evaluate what we are carrying. And the near future does not seem to smile upon us. In fact,
We are not in the right position to understand what we need to govern our lives and make the right decisions. We are in the uncomfortable position of Atlas. We cannot give the necessary attention to assess what is truly important to us. Worried about the urgency of permanent connectivity, we become its prisoners.
Laptops, smartphones, tablets—of course, they are light and easy to carry in our backpacks, and certainly seeing us dart around our cities, on foot or by car, or perhaps on scooters or e-scooters, no one would think of the Titan's effort.
We feel discomfort. Always connected, always informed, always ready to catch the wave, always updated and stimulated by a thousand sources, we end up looking at everything with distraction and haste. Like Atlas, we too look downward.