Fighting the Feeling of Futility

A reflection on writing now

Photo by Irina Iriser on Unsplash

You haven’t heard much from me lately because, like so any people, I have been fighting the feeling of futility. You probably know what I mean. There is so much going on in the world that seems to be going in the wrong direction—climate change and its disasters, the national debt, cruelty against our neighbors, colossal inequality, the displacement of people by AI and robots, the loss of biodiversity—the list goes on and on. It engenders this persistent feeling: There is nothing I can do about it.

It's not that I have not written—I have. In fact, I write every day. But to bring something from the initial idea to fruition enough to publish is an effort, and each piece I work on is always reinforced by the notion that somewhere, somehow, this could make a difference. It disturbs me deeply to find myself muttering the same phrase day after day as I try to bring something else to fruition—Does this really matter? Why am I doing this?

That’s the feeling of futility. The sense that nothing I might do will matter. My vote doesn’t matter, my carbon footprint doesn’t matter. I can’t really do a damned thing about the national debt, which is especially pernicious since we are going into debt to fuel tax cuts for the super wealthy and will justify austerity for everyone else in the years ahead. I can do nothing about any of it.

People will correct me, I am sure. “You can make better personal choices.” Yes, I can. It does make a small difference to move to an EV or solar power, to buy from local food sources, or even to refuse to fly. I could also choose to pay extra taxes or fund a prairie restoration project on my land. And yet, can anyone deny that my personal choices in such matters will do nothing to stop the overall juggernaut? The debt will grow, the economy will tank, we will continue to terrorize our neighbors, AI will continue to develop, and robots will become ubiquitous whether I do these things or not. That’s why futility is growing in my psyche like a cancer. It’s like the more I know about what is going on the worse the cancer of futility becomes. So much so that even writing, which is the lifeblood of my soul, seems pointless. Day after day I struggle against it thinking: How much do these ideas matter? What is it that needs to be said? Will it change anything?

An Opening Perception

It was in this context that I came across something that captured me. This is credited to behavioral scientist Dr. Zelana Montminy:

There’s a certain kind of ache I’ve been feeling lately. It doesn’t have a clear origin. It’s not tied to a headline or a diagnosis or a single moment.

But it lives in my chest. It lives in my breath. It lives in the way I find myself staring out the window longer than I used to, searching for something I can’t quite name.

I think I’m grieving.
Not a person.
But a framework.
A shared understanding of decency.
Of truth.
Of what’s right and what’s way, way off.

Because these days, everything feels a little untethered. Everyone’s entitled to their own version of everything. Authenticity is used to justify cruelty. Disconnection is repackaged as freedom. And attention has become a kind of currency, one you’re supposed to spend constantly, without ever stopping to ask: At what cost?
Kids scroll past genocide and then post a selfie. Leaders lie with impunity. Suffering becomes content. And somewhere in the middle of it all… we’re expected to keep functioning.

But we’re not built for this.
Not for this level of detachment.
Not for the absence of shared truth.
Not for a world where everything is up for debate, including basic humanity.

So we grieve. Even if we don’t call it that.
We feel untethered, anxious, angry, flat. We feel guilty for not “doing more” but too burned out to know what that even means. We wake up with tight chests and call it stress, but maybe it’s deeper than that.

Maybe it’s a heartbreak without a name.
Maybe it’s a mourning for what’s been lost:
Clarity. Accountability. A moral center.
And no morning routine or green juice or optimized nervous system can fix that.

This is a soul-level ache. And it makes perfect sense that you’re tired.

Because underneath the rituals and the strategies and the healing hacks, you’re carrying the weight of a world that feels like it’s slipping off its axis.

So if you feel foggy, furious, shut down, or overly activated, you’re not broken.

You’re awake.
Now the question becomes:
What do we build in its place?
What does it mean to create a life rooted in something real, when so much of the world feels hollow? How do we reclaim the sacred in the middle of a system built on distraction?

This isn’t about fixing everything.
It’s about choosing something.
Choosing connection over performance.
Integrity over appearances.
Care over control.
Truth over trend.

It’s about staying human in a world that keeps asking you to be something less.

So if you’re aching today, let it be known:
You are not alone.
You are not behind.
You are not too sensitive.
You’re responding to something real.
So no, you can’t fix a fractured world.

But you can choose to be a force of repair inside it.

Not by doing more, but by doing what matters.
By naming what hurts instead of numbing it.
By making space for wonder, not just efficiency.
By tending to your corner of the world with care, even when it feels like the rest is burning.
By telling the truth.
By making meaning, not just noise.
These are not small things.
They are the seeds of something sacred.
Because the ache you feel?
It’s not a sign that you’re falling apart.
It’s a call to build something truer in the rubble.
And no, you may not be able to fix the whole thing.

But you can be a place where the rebuilding begins.

*

I’m a Builder, Not a Fighter

I share this at length because it gets at the feeling I have had, certainly, and then ends up at a place where I can make a contribution: Rebuilding. The beginning of rebuilding after the destruction occurs. After the lies have been told. After the people have been hurt and the institutions destroyed. After all that, there is rebuilding to do. And I can be one place where it begins.

But is it only after all that? Or does it begin now. Today. As everything falls apart and things are destroyed, doesn’t the rebuilding start now?

I think it does. This is where I can gain my strength back. My sense of contribution. My feeling that there is something greater within which to work and to which I can contribute. We can all contribute. And that is the rebuilding of a more just, beautiful, abundant, and peaceful world.

The thing is that the current destruction of American democratic institutions emanates from a widely shared notion that government could not get things done. Some people turned against the whole thing and fueled the rise of Trumpism. A much smaller group turned toward far left methods of tearing it all down. And most people in the middle just got frustrated that we couldn’t solve our problems. This frustration was voiced against the so-called “uni-party” and the “deep state” and the “bureaucracy” and even, under Reagan, against government itself. Trumpists have strongly articulated this message. Bernie Sanders did, too. And now, even liberal commentators like Ezra Klein are recognizing the impact of a broken system.

In other words, it was inevitable that at some point, there would need to be a tear down. How big it is and how far it will go is a question we don’t have an answer for. The current tear down feels like a juggernaut with its own life, much like the quote from Dr. Zelana describes. A juggernaut that is hollowing out our experience of life as we know it and creating stresses of the unknown. What will emerge? What will be rebuilt?

For me, the first step is to acknowledge the grief, the loss, and the disorientation that Dr. Zelana so clearly articulates. Then it is to recognize that there is an opportunity in this destruction. And finally, it is to explore how each of us can contribute to the rebuilding.

I know that many people will want to fight. We need those fighters. We have also lost many battles already and the deck is clearly stacked against us. My own feeling of futility was fueled by the Supreme Court’s decisions against individual rights and against injunctions to preserve people’s rights while litigation plays out. It’s as if the court is now in the King’s circle, a mere rubber stamp as we have seen around the world in strongman dominated governments. The fight, we hope, can limit the damage, and for that reason is necessary, even against long odds. But I am not that kind of fighter. I’m a builder. A creator. A manifester. A contributor. In a fight, I will lose; but I can build.

Why There Is Hope

The multi-decade move against liberalism was led by thinkers and intellectuals who, it turns out, are now disavowing their previous advocacy. In a recent story by Zack Beauchamp on Vox, he lays out how leading right-wing thinkers are changing their minds about liberalism. You can read the story if you are interested. If Beauchamp is right, however, it means that a new disenchantment with right-wing ideas is taking hold and that a new consensus may again emerge about the value of liberal principles. He makes the case for example, that just as neoconservatism became largely discredited in the wake of its biggest real world victory—the second Iraq War—so the extreme right wing is being discredited when it manifests in the real world as Trumpsim. The economic destruction, the cruelty against neighbors, the hiding from climate catastrophes, and all the things creating our collective angst are not, in the final analysis, what people want in their lives. We still all want our lives to be better and more informed and more secure and creative—not less so. And this creeping feeling we have of grief over the loss of a commonly held framework is tangible across our society. It’s not just liberals or progressives; that same feeling is moving over into the center right and even far right corners of our world.

This reality gives me hope because it implies that a consensus will become available again. It won’t be the consensus that we had, but rather, a new consensus around principles of liberalism, such as the sovereignty of the individual, civil liberties, and so on. However, this new consensus will emerge in a very different world—one ensconced in AI and robotics, a changing climate, the power of networks as a new metaphor, and so on. Our task is to find the ideas, principles, and values that provide a foundation for rebuilding, and then to articulate those so that they connect to the overall ideology of liberalism as it emerges into a new form. To this effort I will continue to dedicate part of my writing, for it convinces me that falling into futility is really not an option. We will all need to find our way to contribute. This is mine. Please feel free to share this post if you are so moved.

Anthony Signorelli