The Purpose of Futility
In the film Groundhog Day, the Bill Murray character asks, “What would you do if you were stuck in one place, and every day was exactly the same, and nothing that you did mattered?” His drinking buddy replies, “That about sums it up for me.”
For Murray, in the film, every day seems the same—February 2nd, Groundhog Day. And yet it isn’t quite the same because he has a choice about what to do with each day. Despite the seeming futility, he wakes up each morning with memories and skills gained from the previous otherwise identical days.
Murray’s situation seems hopeless, futile. But not really. Through the futility Murray learns to find meaning and virtue that might otherwise have eluded him as a self-absorbed Pittsburgh weatherman. Is it important to the story that eventually February 3rd rolls around? Perhaps not.
Futility has its darker side. It’s one thing to be stuck in Punxsutawney awaiting Groundhog Day. It’s another to be stuck in a concentration camp—awaiting what? Addressing futility at its grimmest, concentration camp survivor Viktor Frankl wrote in Man’s Search for Meaning: “Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.”
Even futility, depending on what we do with it, can be redemptive. The forces that try to crush us with futility might instead make us stronger. The hard things we go through can help us to help others. And often, when people see us struggling with futility, they respond with a compassion we might not otherwise have seen.
So perhaps there’s no such thing as futility.
Interesting article. For many reasons memories of that movie and that book have lingered with me for years. Actually, decades. I've seen the movie twice and read the book three times, I think. What's the purpose of pain, to enjoy pain free states? Darkness? Grief? Losses? C.S. Lewis stuff? Having a purpose in life whether it be related to loss of loved ones, occupational type goals, religious accomplishments and/or a long list of others is critical to survival. That is, if the pinball doesn't fall in the hole, prematurely.
I write often that "Groundhog Day" is one of the most moral movies ever made.
Why? Because its message is that a moral today, making other people happy and thus yourself happy, is the way to a better tomorrow. While there is no specific religious connection with this in the movie, it is obvious that a certain religious attitude will do the same thing.
In case you have seen the movie and don't know, the character Buster who is the groundhog chief is played by Bill Murray's older brother.