Futility

We all used to watch cartoons growing up. And I'm willing to bet that quite a few of us still do (and yes, the Simpsons & the Family Guy count as animated shows, despite the adult themes & humor). But did anyone ever stop to think that these cartoons might actually possesse certain life lessons, as ludicrious as that may sound?
Consider the always popular scenario of a figure standing before a dam. Due to some fantastic mishap, a crack forms, with water squirting out. Now, as that individual sticks his finger in the crack to stop the break, another crack forms. He uses another finger to plug up that second hole & another crack opens. And another. And another. And another.
The idea here is futility, the harsh reality that sometimes, when we put our best efforts into something, it simply isn't sufficient to illicit the desired effect or outcome. In short, sometimes our best simply isn't good enough.
Now, we've all had, at one time or another, felt that sense of insecurity at times of our lives ranging from minute, miniscule querries, to outright problems, where we might not feel as though we're up to the challenge. Often, this feeling might manifest itself in the form of insecurity, or outright fear. Or it might rear it's ugly head in the form of other emotional states like depression, anger or even sheer mania, which is much more common than one would think, or care to admit.
Futility has indeed reared its ugly head in all aspects of ones life. Like, for example,a highschool student trying to get that A on his term paper so mommy & daddy can post it up on the fridge next to his 2nd grade picture of what could either be a kitten or a monkey, or quite possibly both. Or the nerd trying to get a date for his senior prom, just so he can prove to the rest of the school he's not such a loser. The unpopular girl trying to fit in & get some notice. The bad ball player trying to hit his first, and maybe only, homerun, just so he could discover the feeling of such an achievement.
It could be something much more harder. Like that life journey towards eventual happiness that we all must embark upon, but very few ever seem to see through. That trip where we try to discover where our path lies, what we're meant to do, who we're meant to be & how we are to be happy, while at the same time maintaining some semblence of sanity as we constantly fall or go astray, as well as trying to suppress feelings of envy & jealousy towards those who, to us, symbolize that which we so desire or that which we believe we can not have, because of God's will. At one point in my life, I had said that the devil was a comedian, after one too many bad things had happened to me. Satan is perhaps the biggest joker in creation, taking pleasure in the mishap & misfortune of others. I could only imagine him giggling & laughing, while yelling at his minions "Did you see that poor schmuck??!!! I swear, sometimes those humans are just too funny. I crack myself up!!!! hahahahahahahahaha!!!".
Okay, now I'm way off base here, not that what I'm saying is in any way sacreligious. But I suppose that one would ask, why bother?? If it feels that something in life is just too impossible to achieve or that the obstacle between where you are & where you wanna be is far to difficult to surmount, then why even bother?? Why work & work, putting in endless effort & what little time we have in life to achieve something that ultimately, will not benefit us in the afterlife, or in death (for all my beloved atheists out there, that's the closest to a shout out I'll ever give y'all)?
The answer is because that's what life is about. God is a teacher, the world we live in is the classroom & this is the lesson. When we stand before judgement, the question will not be what we accomplished, but what we learned during the process (or so I'd like to believe)? I don't like to think that we all have a purpose, because that's kinda like ugly people saying we're all beautiful on the inside (And by the way, I'm just as butt-ugly as the next guy, so that wasn't a cheap shot). But I do believe that we are all part of a purpose. What that purpose is, I don't know, but I do know that once we begin to understand ourselves, as well as what it is that we want, then we can begin to fulfil that purpose.
Life is one of those words that'll never be fully explained or definitively defined, but in my view, life is hope. Life is the act of getting up every day, hoping for the best & setting out to make that hope real. Literature dictates that "man is the only one of god's creations that isn't dictated by logic" and there is no logic in hope, only faith. Ultimately, it's that faith that will sustain us as we struggle against the futile elements of life & achieve that which has eluded most of us for so long, happiness.
And until we do, regretablly, we are all damned. Welcome to the pit-stop before hell.