Futility
#1 Futility / 99 PRBLMS Writing Exercise
This is my biggest problem. Asking myself “what’s the point?” has killed more ideas than invalidation—an idea after-morning pill, if you will. And speaking of “audience impact,” whenever I produce something, and no form of affirmation rewards my effort, again I ask, what’s the point? And there go my hopes once more, castrated. Daydreams remain as illusory as they have forever been.
And to proponents of the “A for effort” paradigm, I’ve got news for you: it’s a sham. If anything, it only means that you failed at everything else, except in preventing yourself from failure. Interesting enough, the statement itself—its untraceable origin, superior copywriting level, and universality—does not relate at all to its coining because it manifests wit, genius and good damn luck (i.e. not even sure if effort was key at all!)
I don’t consider myself ambitious, but I think much of futility, as many if not all of us do. It’s a very modern problem and people are afraid to come to terms with its certainty. With the diversity of industry, infinity of information and the multiplicity of individual things, what can we not do and what else can we do? Although there are many things we can still do like achieving true sustainability, or space transportation, or the eradication of corruption, ignorance, poverty and discrimination, the logistical burdens alone are too much for one, or a few, or even the great many to carry—because after all, they can only be achieved by all. And there we go again, with futility.
And even if mankind indeed became one-kind, we cannot make sound and incontestable dialogue with an an earthbound asteroid, solar debris shooting off a dying sun, or anything as definitely cataclysmic. It will all end, our accomplishments will collapse with no ruins to even trace them, and nothing living will be left to mourn for them (except maybe cockroaches, and I am not confident with their level of sympathy.) Futility.
Pardon me for being Eeyore. But that’s one thing I can tell you to reassure you that continuing your life is a sensible option—I’m Eeyore, but not everyone is and they certainly don’t need to be. If anything, the only reason why I have a problem with futility is because it’s a word in my vocabulary. It doesn’t have to be in yours. If useless outcomes are your problem, then you go at great lengths to avoid them. And as many have learned, and William James has already penned it beautifully in “Will to Believe” (somewhat), avoiding futility is avoiding possible non-futility.
Therefore, the solution to the problem of futility is not to make a problem out of it. Hypnotize the word out of my mind if I have to. Reorient my synapses through an electric shock or a compulsive fuck (yeah right, but fuck yeah still.) Futility is my biggest problem, because as long as I think about it, it is inevitable.
/TAM
