The project started seeming more and more futile.

First and foremost, we need to pretend that we're not going to die and therefore we have to convince ourselves that all the things we fervently trust are so important and so urgent really do matter and won't look like incomprehensible futile mulch within a few hundred years or less.

We humans have an immense appetite for complicated things, neuroscience, astrophysics and molecular biology of course, but also barely decipherable books, abstract works of art and avant-garde pieces of theatre without plot or character, all of which perhaps evoke the primordial puzzles of the universe and our own always ineffable existence within it. But our veneration for complexity can reach a most painful, time-consuming and futile zenith in one area in particular – relationships. It's here that we find otherwise discerning and hard-headed people exhibiting extreme patience, often lasting over a succession of tormented years, for what we can call complicated situations. The complexities may arise from some of the following dynamics. A beloved partner who wants to commit and surely will one day but not quite yet on account of this or that factor or not entirely because of certain psychological fears or not conclusively or at least not without certain important caveats. They may need space, freedom or what they call a chance to explore though quite what was still not wholly clear, though we have asked them on many occasions. Then a partner with whom there are a lot of misunderstandings, around whom words often lose their standard meanings, around whom we may have to spend hours untangling what was truly meant and around whom gestures or deeds that we previously thought uncontentious suddenly become the occasion for major surprising aggravations. Or a partner who in principle is there for us and in theory loves us very very much but in actuality – like last week and the week before that – is constantly remarkably busy, unable to respond to our texts, out with their compelling friends or concentrated on their always extremely demanding job. Or a partner with whom we sit up late at night on many occasions with a pad and paper to hand attempting to determine where the issues are coming from, what is at play and how things might be handled before, baffled and upset, we finally have to retreat to bed a little after 1am feeling fragile and tearful.

Ultimately, defining whether something is a satellite versus independently orbiting the sun is actually a really tricky and possibly even futile endeavor.

It is futile to resist change, man.

locked in a futile struggle for worldly wealth, fame, and status.

My honesty's brutal, but it's honestly futile.

However, they soon realize that any plan would be futile, because he can predict their every move.

Attempts were made to uncover his identity, but with over 100 suspects, the investigations were futile.

A worthy effort, but futile.