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We all strive to achieve meaningful goals; or ‘ends’ as we’ll call them here. But in achieving them we have a problem - The Paradox of the End.
In part #1 I will spell out the paradox.
In later blogs I will take you through to what I think is a resolution of the paradox. A way to find meaning where there is none
#1 What is the Paradox of the End?
Expression of the paradox of the end was given by Landau as an addendum to the Myth of Sisyphus. To summarise the myth: Sisyphus, having been condemned by the Gods to roll a huge rock uphill, found that having reached the top of the hill the rock rolled to the bottom requiring Sisyphus to endlessly repeat the process. However, adds Landau, the paradox of the end would have been made explicit had the story continued thus: one day, having rolled the rock to the top of the hill, Sisyphus realised it was not rolling to the bottom again. Initially jubilant at having seemingly conquered both the rock and the Gods his euphoria turned increasingly to a sense of restlessness.
It became apparent to Sisyphus that far from conquering the rock and the Gods he had only worsened his situation. So, in need of something to do, some purpose, he pushes the rock over the edge. Having watched it roll to the bottom of the hill he slowly walked down and began rolling the rock back up the hill. To put it more succinctly, achieving ends, whilst seemingly desirable, leaves us in need of a purpose or meaning, so we invent ends to give ourselves this sense of meaning. The problem is of course that the ends are meaningless, serving only to provide a reason to act, but when we realise this even the activity becomes meaningless.
Examples which give expression to the meaninglessness of life abound in literature. Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus is a discussion of the central idea of Absurdity; something he sees as arising from the imperfect fit between human reasoning and its intended object. The idea of the absurd was later developed in his novel The Outsider where he addresses, through the novel’s protagonist Meursault, the fundamental question of whether life is worth living when confronted with the meaningless of the human condition. In his later writings Camus aims to elucidate some values for man confronted with cosmic meaninglessness. In The Plague the city of Oran is intended to symbolise man’s isolation in the world; this was followed by The Fall where Camus returns to ironical pessimism.
A major influence on Camus was Franz Kafka. In The Castle Kafka’s solipsism portrays society as a pointless, schizophrenically rational, structure into which bemused individuals have strayed. In his earlier work The Trial we, and the central character Joseph K, discover on the first page that he lives and is condemned. This revelation expresses full force the tragedy of the human condition.
In Kafka we have also have Samuel Beckett’s precursor; a writer who exhibited a preoccupation with the pointlessness of life which we strive to make purposeful, dialectically balancing the tragedy of hope and the comedy of despair. Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot best exemplifies the Beckettian view of the human predicament; the vacuity of human endeavours, philosophies and hopes.
Another writer rapt with the meaninglessness of life was Gabriel Marcel. In his dramatic master-work The Broken World he portrays the devastating sense of emptiness and superficiality of human activity that bedevils the modern world. Marcel’s philosophical works following this play were an attempt to articulate an existential approach that provided depth and meaningfulness to human life. In On the Ontological Mystery, a philosophical sequel to The Broken World, Marcel directly confronts the issues of “Who am I?” and explores the notion of intersubjectivity, transcendence and creative fidelity in his attempt to give voice to the requisite attitudes and essential characteristics necessary for depth and meaning.
Nowhere, however, is the meaninglessness of life made more explicit than in Søren Kierkegaard’s short book Repetition. His distinctively autobiographical style depicts the unhappiness or melancholy felt, after an all too brief period of euphoria, in having achieved an end. This ‘unhappiness’, as he described it, caused by discontent and a melancholia arising from an indulgence in thoughts of a pleasing sadness. In other words, reflections upon what once gave us meaning and significance. The mistake we make, according to Kierkegaard, is that we stand ‘at the end instead of the beginning.’ That is to say, happiness is to be gained in striving toward an end, and melancholy is to be found in arriving at the end and reflecting upon, or recollecting what gave meaning at the beginning. Indeed, the very absence of the experience of meaning at the beginning is the absence of a desire to exert ourselves. So, our recollecting after achieving an end actually begins with a loss; a loss of meaning, purpose, significance and happiness. As Kierkegaard so succinctly put it; ‘all that is has been’ so we become melancholic.
So, what we experience in striving are both the present and the future uniting to give us meaning and significance, the very means to act purposefully. But when the future is achieved, the end attained, we are left only with an experience derived from recollections. Except of course this is an experience which is the reverse of what was initially purposefulness, meaningfulness and significance. I take this source of existential discomfort associated with the paradox of the end to be an expression of the Absurdity of life discussed by both existentialist and non-existentialist alike. Moreover, I contend we invent ends in order to give meaning to our actions, as does Sisyphus in Landau’s version of the myth. Yet whilst these activities consume our attention in momentary forgetfulness they nonetheless remain meaningless.
As already indicated; the paradox of the end itself only arises because we set ourselves ends (considered important or otherwise) and strive for their attainment. So should we purge ourselves of all ends orientated activity? The alternative would be to concede that life is in fact meaningless and invert activity so that all we once considered means we now consider as ends. But if we emphasise the significance of activity over ends in such a manner the end itself becomes inconsequential which thereby makes the activity meaningless. Neither seems satisfactory.
In # 2 I will show how the closer we get to achieving our goals the happier we feel. And this is when we are confronted with the paradox.