Do you ever feel like you’re just going through the motions but you’re not actually producing anything of substance? Or, when you think that you’ve identified the thing that will make it all worth it, the feeling is short-lived and the thing ends up feeling like no big deal? You’re not alone, because I feel the exact same way. It’s like I’m stuck on some sort of existential treadmill, running toward what I think is some sort of golden purpose, but it’s always just out of reach.
Or the target keeps moving further and further away, changing locations as often as the weather.
The Hedonic Treadmill Seeks Meaning
Perhaps I’m conflating two completely separate concepts. Or, just maybe, there is a certain crossing of the Venn diagram, so to speak, where these two notions intersect.
On the one hand, we have this sense of existential dread or an existential crisis. What is our purpose? Do our lives have any meaning or value? Then, on the other hand, we have the hedonic treadmill or hedonic adaptation. We chase the thing that will make us happy. When we get it, the happiness is fleeting, momentary. Inevitably, the thing just becomes the new normal.
When we run on the existential treadmill, figuratively speaking, we keep running toward some sense of meaning, purpose or value in our lives. “Here’s why what I do matters,” we tell ourselves. “Here is why I matter.” We strive to answer the question, “What’s the point?”
Maybe, we try to derive a sense of purpose and meaning from our professional lives. At some point, perhaps we look for that impact in our interactions with friends, family and loved ones. Or from volunteering with local organizations or creative and artistic expression. “That’s my legacy,” we tell ourselves.
But, it never feels like it is enough, so we seek more.
The Peloton of Human Suffering
Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran once said that anxiety “tries to find justification for itself, and in order to do so seizes upon anything, the vilest pretexts, to which it clings.” Indeed, this sense of existential dread or an existential crisis is very much a problem of privilege. You don’t have time to seek the meaning of life when you’re struggling to put food on the table or a roof over your head.
It seems like no matter where you are in life, no matter what your personal circumstances may be, it’s so easy to get stuck running on one treadmill or another. When you’re trapped in a cycle of poverty, it feels impossible to get off the treadmill of running paycheck to paycheck. Once you’ve got a little bit of disposable income, you might gravitate to a hedonic treadmill. A new gadget, a new toy, a new thing that will surely deliver untold amounts of joy. Until it doesn’t.
Then, maybe as you get older and think more about your legacy or how any of this even matters, you may find yourself on an existential treadmill. You keep running and going through the motions. And, even if you’ve objectively made a lot of progress in your life, you’re still here. At least it feels that way, because from your perspective, you are always here. Wherever here is for you right now.
An Existential Treadmill in a Meaningless Desert
Even when faced with such futility, not unlike Sisyphus on the hill, many of us continue to crave meaning and purpose in “a universe that is as indifferent as rock, utterly devoid of meaning.” The reality is that, broadly speaking, no one cares. The world does not care, nowhere near as much as you do, about what you do with your life. It is completely up to you and that sense of responsibility can be paralyzing.
As Jean-Paul Sartre once reminded us, we are “condemned to be free.” And that near limitless freedom is at once overwhelming, infinite and terrifying.
I can only speak for myself when I say that because I always can do more, I feel like I’m never doing enough. The existential treadmill is just like the hedonic treadmill in this way. You achieve a goal or you find a purpose. You get there, wherever there is supposed to be. You’re then stuck with the impossible question: What now? Did this really matter? In the end, these questions simply morph into, “What’s next?”
All this running is exhausting. Maybe I need to step off the existential treadmill, catch my breath, and take a moment to better appreciate my surroundings. Sometimes, perhaps, just being present can be enough.
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