Cul-de-sac

To do anything with your life — great or small — is a ‘waste of time’ as the end is guaranteed, right? We all have so-many spins on this mortal coil and we all end up worm food, so why do anything? Why leave a mark? Why clean the kitchen? Why go to school, or to work?

Why bother to do anything or be anything when we all end up 6-feet under or as ashes scattered to the wind?

Unbridled Angst

This sounds like nihilism to me, and nihilism is a logical cul-de-sac which has been the obsession of the time-poor philosopher and angsty teens alike for time immemorial. Nihilism is pessimism incarnate: that nothing we do matters, that life serves no meaning and that moral and social values are inherently baseless and redundant.

Pessimism and nihilism are frequent stations for our trains of thought. In fact, I would hazard a guess these were the stations of choice for many of our thoughts, who alighted sometime between December 2019 — March 2020 (whenever your town was first visited by the viral sensation, Covid-19).

I say this mode of thinking is a cul-de-sac because by its own nature — and by its own tenets — to be pessimistic is to close down and surrender in the face of overwhelming adversity. To accept the end and to go no further. To forgo agency and wait for the cold, indifferent embrace of the void. To simply, end.

Where do you go from this line of thinking, when you are at the end of the road, nowhere to progress toward?

Well, there’s houses in cul-de-sacs.

If you’re lost, or you don’t know where to go — try knocking on someone’s door. Ask, see if they have any ideas on where to go from here. I can imagine that the first step they’ll tell you to take is behind you. Go back the way you came, unless you’re a big fan of hanging around the philosophical equivalent of a toddler’s temper tantrum.

Going back the way you came, to reassess the decisions you have made to get to this dreadful place. One by one like the steps of the foggy headed in midday sun after a big night out. Each step may be painful, you may get turned around, but any step is a step forward if you change your direction.

If back the way you came is no good, you can always ask to go out through your new friend’s back door. Houses tend to have those. You’ll end up in a yard perhaps, but at the back of the yard is a fence. Once you scale that fence you’ll be somewhere completely new. Maybe someone else’s yard, maybe a motorway, maybe a bit of parkland. The thing is, you won’t be in your old cul-de-sac any more.

All of this is easier said than done, obviously. But the next step of your journey is not nearly as important as your next step. One foot in front of the other. Usain Bolt is the fastest sprinter ever, but even he needs to take one step at a time to finish a race.

So, while it is easy to give in to despair, to go to this cul-de-sac and stay; there’s nothing for you here. Despair, pessimism, nihilism — all lead to a dead end in a crap part of town. Far better for you in these ‘difficult times’ to look to what is within your power to change, and to look toward your own reasoned choices that lead you to this point. What is the road you can take back so you can try a different street? If the way back is blocked, then who’s house looks the friendliest to knock on the door and ask for directions or, even to help you out.

Cul-de-sacs may have a single road leading in and out, but there are always unconventional ways to get yourself out of what seems like a dead-end.