All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed

Host: The night was cold, the rain whispered against the window of a small Parisian café tucked between the stone walls of Rue Mouffetard. Streetlights flickered, casting gold halos on wet cobblestones. Inside, the air was thick with coffee steam and murmured conversations. At a corner table, two figures sat facing each other, their reflections trembling in the glass like uncertain ghosts of themselves.

Jack leaned forward, his hands wrapped around a chipped cup, grey eyes fixed on the rising steam. Jeeny sat opposite him, her fingers tracing the rim of her cup, her brown eyes alive with something soft and wounded.

The clock on the wall struck nine, and with that slow, inevitable sound, the conversation began.

Jeeny: “Do you remember what Sartre said, Jack? ‘All human actions are equivalent and all are on principle doomed to failure.’”

Jack: “Of course I remember. That’s why I’m drinking coffee instead of trying to save the world.”

Host: Jack’s voice was low, husky, edged with a bitterness that had grown too familiar to him. The rain behind him made a steady sound, like an indifferent heartbeat.

Jeeny: “You think he meant it literally? That every action—good or bad—ends the same way?”

Jack: “Not think. I know. Look around you, Jeeny. Empires crumble, ideologies rot, dreams fade. Every human act, no matter how grand, ends in the same dust. Failure isn’t an exception—it’s the rule.”

Host: Jeeny’s eyes lifted toward the window, where a young man outside helped an old woman cross the street, holding an umbrella over her frail shoulders.

Jeeny: “And yet, that boy helping her—does that mean nothing to you? Even if it doesn’t change the world, even if it’s forgotten tomorrow—doesn’t it matter in that moment?”

Jack: “Moments don’t matter when they vanish. You can’t build meaning out of things that dissolve. That’s what Sartre understood. Our actions are screams into the void, and the void doesn’t echo back.”

Host: The café door opened briefly, a gust of wind carrying in the smell of wet asphalt and tired footsteps. The world outside seemed both infinite and utterly indifferent.

Jeeny: “You sound like you’ve already given up.”

Jack: “No. I just stopped pretending there’s something to win. Look at history—Napoleon, Gandhi, even the revolutionaries who thought they could rewrite the human soul. They all believed their actions meant something. But in the end? Their ideals corrupted, their legacies twisted, their victories devoured by time. Every act is just a different shape of failure.”

Jeeny: “And yet, without those acts, we’d still be crawling in caves. We wouldn’t even have the language to say the word ‘failure.’ Humanity rises because it falls. That’s the paradox you refuse to see.”

Jack: “You call that rising? Two world wars, genocides, a planet choking on its own ambition? If that’s rising, I’ll stay down.”

Host: Jeeny’s breath caught. The flame of a nearby candle flickered violently, throwing their faces into fractured light.

Jeeny: “Then tell me, Jack—what’s the point of living if every action is meaningless?”

Jack: “To observe the absurdity of it all. To stand in the wreckage and laugh, maybe. To live without illusions. That’s freedom.”

Jeeny: “That’s despair dressed up as philosophy.”

Jack: “Maybe. But it’s honest. Honesty has to count for something.”

Jeeny: “Not if it kills hope.”

Host: Her voice trembled but did not break. There was something defiant in her quietness, a fire that flickered behind the sadness in her eyes.

Jeeny: “You talk like meaning must be immortal to exist. But maybe meaning is like that candle—fragile, temporary, and beautiful precisely because it can go out. Maybe we fail, yes—but what if failure is the proof that we tried?”

Jack: “Trying doesn’t redeem the inevitable. It just prolongs the delusion.”

Jeeny: “So, when your mother raised you, fed you, held you when you were sick—was that delusion too?”

Host: Jack’s jaw tightened. The question struck like a quiet knife. He didn’t answer immediately. His fingers drummed the table, searching for composure.

Jack: “That was instinct. Biology pretending to be love.”

Jeeny: “No. That was love pretending to be biology. That’s the difference between your philosophy and mine—you think everything’s mechanized, reducible. But human beings aren’t equations. We give meaning even when the universe gives us none.”

Host: The rain grew heavier, drumming against the window until their reflections blurred. The café had emptied except for them. The waiter, bored, wiped the counter with slow, circular motions.

Jack: “You’re romanticizing futility. That’s how people survive—by lying to themselves.”

Jeeny: “Maybe self-deception is the only rebellion we have left. Even Camus said, ‘One must imagine Sisyphus happy.’ He knew the rock would always roll back down, and yet he pushed it anyway. That’s not failure—that’s defiance.”

Jack: “Camus was a poet, not a realist.”

Jeeny: “And Sartre was a realist who couldn’t bear his own logic. You think he believed his own words entirely? He still wrote, still loved, still fought for freedom. If all acts were doomed, why did he act at all?”

Jack: “Because even philosophers need distractions.”

Jeeny: “No. Because he was human. And being human means doing what we know we can’t perfect.”

Host: Jack leaned back, eyes narrowing, the smoke from his cigarette curling upward like a fragile soul escaping gravity.

Jack: “Then tell me—if we’re doomed, why should I care? Why should anyone?”

Jeeny: “Because caring is what makes us human. Because the moment we stop caring, Sartre’s prophecy becomes real—not as philosophy, but as apocalypse.”

Host: A long silence filled the space. The rain slowed. The clock ticked again, this time softer, like a heartbeat rediscovered.

Jeeny: “Do you know the story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising?”

Jack: “Yes. They knew they couldn’t win.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. They fought anyway. Not for victory, but for dignity. That’s what human action is—not success or failure, but the refusal to be nothing.”

Jack: “So you think failure has meaning if it’s defiant enough?”

Jeeny: “No. I think failure is inevitable—but meaning isn’t. Meaning is a choice.”

Host: Jack stared at her, and for a moment, his mask cracked. The cynicism drained from his eyes, replaced by something faintly human—fatigue, maybe, or a reluctant understanding.

Jack: “You sound like a priest in a godless world.”

Jeeny: “Maybe faith doesn’t need gods. Maybe it just needs hearts that refuse to go numb.”

Host: The candle between them burned lower, the wax pooling like melted time. The world outside had quieted into a faint mist, the city catching its breath.

Jack: “So, all actions are doomed, but not meaningless?”

Jeeny: “Exactly. Sartre gave us the sentence, but we choose the punctuation.”

Jack: “A question mark or a period?”

Jeeny: “A comma. Because as long as we’re alive, the sentence isn’t finished.”

Host: Jack smiled—a small, reluctant curve of the mouth, the kind that comes when a truth hurts but feels right.

Jack: “You always ruin my nihilism.”

Jeeny: “Someone has to.”

Host: The café lights dimmed, leaving only the flicker of that single candle. Outside, the rain had stopped, and the pavement shimmered like a mirror reflecting something eternal and fleeting all at once.

The two sat in silence—Jack with his grey eyes softened, Jeeny with her brown eyes glowing. Between them, the candle flame trembled but refused to die.

And in that fragile, trembling light, failure itself seemed to have failed.