What’s the Point?

(Or maybe… why not? 😄)

The other night, someone pressed me hard on a political question. I thanked them — for sharing their “truth” (sorry, their Reality 😅

). If you’re reading this, you know who you are. I say this playfully, but sincerely: maybe you’re right. And in any case, I owe you this piece.

So let’s take your claim seriously. After all, I only have a point of view. Informed, yes, but still just a view. Which grows richer when it collides with someone else’s “truth.”

The big question is this: does throwing yourself into a cause ever matter if, objectively, it’s bound to fail? What’s the point?

And that’s not just political — it’s existential. Some mornings, it’s hard even to get out of bed. The world reminds us daily how powerless we are. So much feels out of reach. Why get up at all? Maybe the real question is why we still do it. Out of need? Desire? Because we believe… in life itself? And sometimes people stop being able to. That’s called burnout. Push too far, and your own body says: no more.

But suppose you still have that fire to act (even if some will say it’s naive — and maybe they’re right). Then let’s not look only at history books from 50 years ago. Let’s look at today.

In England, in 2008, a few people in the small town of Todmorden started planting vegetables for everyone to share — even outside the police station. People laughed. Today, the town is self-sufficient in produce, and their idea has spread worldwide.

In Ethiopia’s Tigray region, starting in the 2010s, villagers closed hillsides to grazing and logging. Within years, trees, springs, and fertile soil came back. Life returned to what was thought permanently barren land.

In Senegal’s Casamance, beginning in 2008, fishermen replanted mangroves, tree by tree, by hand. Twenty years later: 152 million trees. The largest mangrove reforestation on Earth. Villages survived because fish returned.

Yes — exceptions. Most attempts fail. But exceptions matter. They prove the possible.

Think of the Mercury 13, women pilots in the U.S. who trained like astronauts but were grounded because of their gender. They “failed.” Yet without them, later women wouldn’t have made it into space.

Think of the suffragettes — in Britain, in the U.S. — ridiculed, jailed, some even killed for demanding the vote. And they too had predecessors: abolitionists, labor activists, early feminists. Generations passed the torch before women’s suffrage became “obvious.”

Think of the decades-long fight against corporate tax dodging. For years, we were told multinationals were untouchable, too powerful to tax. And yet, after twenty years of work by NGOs, economists, and activists, a global minimum corporate tax was adopted in 2021. Imperfect, fragile, maybe incomplete — but unthinkable just a few years earlier. And the struggle goes on: today, the global wealth tax idea pushed by economist Gabriel Zucman is finally echoing in official halls.

I could name many more.

But let’s be honest: most of the time, things don’t work out. We see it. They’re exceptions. Small groups insisting against all odds bend history. (And they never do it alone. No one is born from a vacuum. We learn, we fight, we grow — even in opposition.)

So yes, maybe the majority, caught up in survival, will never “succeed.” Not even across centuries. But what does success even mean?

You try something. It fails. But it builds your path. It teaches you what you want, and what you’ll never want again. It plants the seeds of futures you can’t yet imagine. How could you know without trying?

The person I spoke with tried to prove the opposite — that reality shows it’s pointless. But really, he was sharing what he believes, what he feels, the road he’s now taking in his own life. Maybe his words will echo in me one day. Maybe not. Like me, he may change course — or return again and again to the same road he trusts. That’s life. Some people change overnight. Others just evolve. Either way, he gave me this text. Another chance to try speaking across the void. And for that, I thank him.

Maybe it’s pointless after all. (I leave that doubt open — because really, we’re talking about making ourselves understood by others.) In the end, what matters is being at peace with yourself. 🙂

Franck.

Ps: So… what about you?
Drop it in the comments below.