A hollow rebellion, a futile pursuit

I often wonder if I am a lot different from how people exist. People chase goals, relational, academic, and more. Their goal posts shift often as there are comparisons and a sense of competitiveness. What drives their chase is immaterial. They chase something material.

I chase this feeling of pristinity. I chase a feeling of adherence. I do not adhere to societal norms. I do not spare a thought for what is stated under the garb of morality, good or bad. I chase a feeling of adherence nonetheless. What must something I do adhere to? Is not well defined. What is the level of pristinity I seek? Is not defined. Nonetheless, I chase.

We were born into this world randomly, will perish eventually, absolutely, and exist meaninglessly in between. Living feels like a lie between the two truths of non existence. The universe may be indifferent to our existence itself, but to live, we choose our own purposes. As long as they keep us content and absorbed, we live.

So we fixate on something. Material or not is immaterial. For Sisyphus, though he never chose the rock, he did choose the labor. It was futile; he was happy. Meaning, he knew and recognised the futility and yet chose to do it. Do we know the futility, recognise it, and yet choose to pursue?

How we are handed the rock is immaterial. Under what premises is immaterial. If existence itself is a lie between the two poles of non existence, to continue existing is the labor. Whether in rebellion or not, the act of choosing that labor (to be in pursuit of something as futile, fleeting, as existence is) still needs to provision some sort of contentment.

What if the satisfaction of arriving somewhere while chasing a goal goes amiss? We either need a level of satisfaction at the end of the pursuit, or in the labor we put into it. Take away both, and it is torment.

Finding happiness in futility is not a practical human endeavour, however romanticised it might be. We are emotional at our core, however logical we might show up as. So, take away the explicit satisfaction to be derived, and implicitly, the effort: the pursuit becomes meaningless.

To transcend the bounds of how we exist and simply exist is analogous to enduring a suffering while feigning contentment. If our existence were in defiance to how we are expected to exist, then such existence itself still would give us a sense of achievement. Whether we claim it or not.

Take away emotion and reward (even fleeting), and our existence itself is in contradiction to why we chose to exist even in defiance. While Sisyphus observed the futility, he would have derived some meaning from the effort. Else, the effort itself would be futile. So to say, fight meaninglessness by applying meaninglessness, i.e, fight meaninglessness by submitting to the futility without deriving some satisfaction while at it, is meaningless.