Perseverance in the Face of Futility

This video is sponsored by Squarespace, the all-in-one website platform for entrepreneurs to stand out and succeed online. One must imagine Sisphus happy.

online. One must imagine Sisphus happy.

That is the famous final line of Albert Kimu's essay, the myth of Seisphus.

Copus was the king of Ara and the most cunning mortal in all of Greek mythology, who in the most renowned version of the myth cheated death and as

punishment was sentenced by the gods to push a huge boulder up a hill for all eternity.

The punishment is not just the brutal physical labor, but the dissatisfaction of never being able to achieve the task, for the boulder would always forever

roll back onto the foot of the hill before ever reaching the top. Over the

past year, I have been wrangling with this painful realization that I too may be engaging in a sisphan task of my own,

one which very well may be entirely futile. Now, its overt futility has made

futile. Now, its overt futility has made me feel rather ashamed and embarrassed of my perceive asking why I do something like this

because by all accounts, it's going to be impossible. And in one of my late

be impossible. And in one of my late night battles with my brain lying in bed, the figure of Seisphus emerged before me, as did Kimu's interpretation

of him as the absurd hero. Kimu's

philosophy of the absurd is that which relates to two other branches of philosophy, nihilism and existentialism.

Where existentialists fought against nihilism, attempting to find meaning in the abyss of it all, Kimu claimed there is no meaning in life and that doesn't

matter in the slightest. The absurd for Kimu was humanity's desperate drive to keep seeking and find meaning in a life where in reality there is none. And even

then, I mean, we wouldn't know what we're looking for. So, how would someone know if they found meaning if they did?

No one has ever found a universal meaning by any means. And theologians

and philosophers who keep attempting to answer the question, what is the meaning of life are running a fool's errand?

Now, I should clarify that the universe and the world are not absurd, but our relationship with them is. Thus, what is absurd is how we exist simultaneously.

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Now, in his book, The Stranger, or Listr, or the Outsider, as it's known in English, Kimu demonstrates how terrifying people find the absurd. The

story centers a man who is on trial for killing another man. And while everyone is confident he'll be released without punishment, by the end of the trial, he is sentenced to death. Not because of

his crime, but because of how he presents himself in the trial. Nothing

has meaning to this man. He is

completely indifferent to everything. He

is the absurd man. He is completely detached from values and never seeks explanation or justification. He quietly

revolts against society's expectations of him. He has no ethics or care for

of him. He has no ethics or care for their judgment of him. He cares not for their opinions or the meaning they derive from his actions. The absurd man

is aware of the absurdity that is everyday life. The repetitive motions of

everyday life. The repetitive motions of eating, sleeping, working, Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays and Thursdays, the cyclical nature of it all performed

and followed without ever asking why.

The monotony and repetitiveness of everyday life is epitomized by Seisphus's task of rolling the boulder up the hill. He is condemned to a life

of pain and all of his efforts will be completely insignificant.

Yet, Seisphus is the absurd hero.

Seisphus is the absurd hero because he does not fall into despair over this. In

the brief moment when the boulder rolls to the bottom of the hill, he turns to look at it. And in that moment, he is free. And as he walks down to it, he is

free. And as he walks down to it, he is quote superior to his fate and stronger than his rock. The kimu, it is in

Sisphus's embrace of his struggle, no matter how repetitive or futile it may be, that gives it significance and value

by embracing it as his own. Now, while

society would be a dangerous place for everyone to be absurd, like the protagonist of Kimu's novel, there's something rather liberating in realizing

through his attitude that many of the things that hold us back in life are choices that we make due to constraints that we choose to subscribe to. Now,

this is most easily understood in terms of say religion. Religious doctrines

have principles to live by as well as constraints such as no sex before marriage or no idolization of false gods. And such principles and

gods. And such principles and constraints are the point of the system in what Kami would call a completely absurd cycle of life. People try to find

meaning in living life a certain way but also by allowing that meaning to guide its actions. Therefore, it is mute. So

its actions. Therefore, it is mute. So

whether you are religious or not, we all have values that guide our lives and actions. Being concerned with how we are

actions. Being concerned with how we are perceived by others, whether that's family or public shame or failure, that fear holds us back. It is in the

judgment one receives for pursuing a futile endeavor that one is reluctant to continue pursuing it. It's the same reason that many people do not study certain courses at university because

their family told them it won't make them money or people stick to jobs that they hate because other people tell them, "Well, it's good money and the grass isn't greener on the other side."

Being overly concerned with how other people perceive the value of our endeavors has the same constraining effect on our behaviors as the judgment of a god would on the behaviors of those

who are religious. But Kimu's absurdest man has no values and as such is completely free because what does any of it matter anyway? If one subscribes to

the belief that nothing we do matters and that everything we do in life is futile in the grand scheme of things, then what difference is pursuing a degree in medicine to aspiring to be an

actor who works part-time in Starbucks?

Well, the only difference would be other people's judgment of you where other people would deem your career better or worthier or more meaningful than the

other. But if one were not to subscribe

other. But if one were not to subscribe to those belief systems themselves, and also accept the idea that there is no meaning in life, thus nothing was more

or less meaningful than anything else, then it doesn't matter which career they pursue. For oneself, the only difference

pursue. For oneself, the only difference would be the value one subscribes to and lives by. Whether one valued spending

lives by. Whether one valued spending one's time helping people in medical need or dedicating their life to theater in the arts. Now, Kamu would argue that

the only reason people would consider one pursuit worthier than the other is down to man-made constructed ethics which elevate the preservation of life

over the liberal arts. But to subscribe to that way of thinking is technically optional. And to consider oneself a good

optional. And to consider oneself a good or bad person for subscribing to a certain way of thinking is also a man-made construct. The subscription to

man-made construct. The subscription to which is again optional. Now in this hypothetical scenario that I presented to you, you may be subconsciously passing judgment coming to the

conclusion that the person who pursues medicine is better than the actor working in Starbucks. But the odds are you watching this are not a doctor in

medicine. And as such, may I ask you, do

medicine. And as such, may I ask you, do you constantly every day think to yourself that your life is worthless and pointless because you are not prioritizing saving lives in your

everyday work? Do you think you are

everyday work? Do you think you are lesser than because you are not saving lives? And do you think your life is

lives? And do you think your life is meaningless when compared to a doctor's life? Well, the chances are that no, you

life? Well, the chances are that no, you don't think that way. You have other things going on. And the fact that you're not a medical doctor has probably rarely entered your head, if ever. But

again, this hypothetical case study likely sparked judgment from you.

Judgment which comes from a societal script that you have unconsciously subscribed to. For Kimu, liberty is

subscribed to. For Kimu, liberty is accepting the absurd and unsubscribing from it all. Because really, if we were to put everyone under a microscope and

ascribe value or significance in the same way we'd pass judgment on to our child who was debating between studying medicine or pursuing acting, we'd find ourselves in a hellhole of neverending

torment of realizing that our lives meant nothing and everything we did was futile in comparison to someone else.

However, if we accept that everything we do is ultimately futile, we own our decisions and values as those that we have organically adopted. After all, it

would be rather impossible to live without any values. But there would be no shame in oneself for openly admitting that they cared more for acting than they did medicine. If we do not value

other people's judgments or opinions, how can they hurt us? If we never ascribed significance to anything, then there would be no insignificance that could hurt us either, for that would be

the default. Those who embrace the

the default. Those who embrace the absurdity of it all have the mental capacity to embrace the world and their life for what it is without being

impeded by existentialism or the judgments of others. Now, obviously, all this talk about the meaninglessness of life brings me to the elephant in the

room, suicide. If life has no meaning,

room, suicide. If life has no meaning, then why live it? Well, Camu argues suicide goes against all the

opportunities presented by the meaninglessness of it all. Suicide is

not the answer. And as someone who has a history of suicide attempts, I agree with Kimu here. You see what's wonderful about absurdism is that it sort of

punches a hole through nihilism with a smile on its face. For Kimu, we should be embracing the meaninglessness of it all rather than desparing in it.

Learning to live without meaning is true freedom because it provides so much opportunity to experience the quantity

of opportunities the world has to offer.

None of us thankfully are Seephus. None

of us are locked into a divine fate of repetitive monotonous physical torture.

There will be moments where we feel like we are as such. But again, how much of those moments become torturous and unbearable due to your reality or due to

your mindset? And after reading this

your mindset? And after reading this again to myself, I thought, what does it matter if my pursuits in life are futile? If I don't care that other

futile? If I don't care that other people see my pursuits as futile, and I believe everything I do is fundamentally futile. Thus, my pursuit is no less

futile. Thus, my pursuit is no less futile than anything else I do in life.

What does it matter if I fail if I care not for the mockery, judgment, or unkindness of others? Does life end with one failure? Or does it offer insight to

one failure? Or does it offer insight to us about ourselves? Would I rather live with the reality of failure or the hypothetical, what if if I never tried?

And why are we so afraid of what that failure will mean for us when the meaning we derive from anything in life is entirely within our control? Do I

look upon Seephus and see him as this pathetic, worthless man whose life is completely pointless? No. Cuz I'm not a

completely pointless? No. Cuz I'm not a horrible judgmental person. And with all honesty, if his life were completely pointless, how has his mythology and his

symbolism come to mean so much to billions of people across the world for thousands of years? Here is a man doing the most pointless thing a man can do.

He has accomplished absolutely nothing and will accomplish nothing for all eternity.

And yet, in doing nothing, he has done so much. And in accomplishing nothing,

so much. And in accomplishing nothing, he has created so much meaning. Meaning

that all of us have analyzed and taken away from for thousands of years. He's

renowned not for his lack of accomplishments, but for his perseverance. It means nothing to

perseverance. It means nothing to anyone. It means nothing to the world.

anyone. It means nothing to the world.

And yet what he does means so much that he has been dissected and discussed amongst scholars and philosophers and artists and writers and scientists for

thousands of years. And it's rather amazing how much value futility can bring to the world when you think of it that way. Thank you so much for

that way. Thank you so much for watching. I hope you enjoyed it. If you

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