like Atlas carrying the world

Long before the age of gods and heroes, the elder race of the Titans made war upon Zeus and the younger gods for rule of the universe. It was a war that shook the earth and darkened the sky, and it went on for ten years — but in the end the Titans lost, and Zeus took his revenge on each of them.

Among the defeated stood Atlas, a Titan of immense strength who had fought fiercely against the gods. For his part in the war, Zeus devised a punishment that would last as long as the world itself. He would not kill Atlas, nor chain him in some pit. He would give him a weight to hold.

And so Atlas was set at the western edge of the world and made to bear the whole vault of the heavens upon his shoulders — the entire dome of the sky pressing down on one being, forever. There he stood, alone, legs braced and back bent, holding up creation with no one to spare him and no hour of rest.

He could not set the burden down, for if he did the sky would fall and crush the world. He could not walk away, for the weight went where he went. Every muscle of him strained against a load that would have flattened a mountain, and still he held — because there was no one else, and it could not be allowed to fall.

To carry something like Atlas carrying the world is to bear a burden that heavy and that lonely: to hold up on your own shoulders a weight that seems to press down the whole of your world, with no one to share it and no way to lay it down.