Global Report: The Universal Art of Trying (and Failing) in 2024
Trying, According to the Planet
By Our Man in the Departures Lounge
Trying, the verb the whole world has agreed to conjugate badly, has become the last universal currency. From Ulan Bator to Uberlândia, humans are currently exhausting themselves in the noble art of giving it “the old college try,” despite the old college having been bulldozed to make room for a data center. The result is a planet-wide performance review that reads like a ransom note: “Tried, sort of, but the hostage is still tied to the radiator of late-stage capitalism.”
Take the Paris Summit on Trying Harder, which wrapped up last week after delegates tried—there’s that word again—to draft a legally binding commitment to global effort. The final communiqué, printed on recycled disappointment, pledged that every nation would “endeavor to endeavor,” a linguistic ouroboros that left translators reaching for stronger coffee and weaker morals. Meanwhile, Tuvalu’s delegate tried to point out that her country is literally disappearing, but the microphone cut out—possibly from rising sea levels, possibly from budget cuts. Either way, the effort was noted, filed, and color-coded beige.
In the private sector, trying has been rebranded as “hustle culture,” a lifestyle choice that encourages workers to treat burnout like a collectible NFT. Amazon warehouses now come with inspirational posters that read “Peak Performance Begins Where Your Ligaments End,” while Japanese salarymen compete to see who can die at their desk with the most unread emails. The winner receives a posthumous emoji and a 2 % discount on the company’s new biodegradable coffins. Multinationals call this “continuous improvement”; the rest of us call it Tuesday.
Even the afterlife is trying to keep up. In Mexico, Día de los Muertos now features QR codes on gravestones, because nothing says “eternal rest” like a 404 error. In Greece, Hades has reportedly outsourced ferry services across the River Styx to a gig-economy start-up that pays Charon per soul but docks his wages if any arrive damp. When asked for comment, Charon tried to form a union, only to discover that ghosts make unreliable picket-line partners.
Meanwhile, the global south continues to try to industrialize without incinerating the biosphere, a juggling act made harder by the fact the north keeps tossing chainsaws into the routine. Uganda’s brand-new solar farm was proudly unveiled last month, then promptly used to power a bitcoin mine owned by a consortium of Scandinavian influencers who offset their guilt by planting a single baobab tree—on Instagram. The tree died, but the post got 2.3 million likes, which economists agree is the sound the planet makes when it sighs.
China is trying to transition to green energy while simultaneously building coal plants, a contradiction the Foreign Ministry describes as “dialectical choreography.” The choreography looks suspiciously like tap-dancing on a fault line, but the TikTok is mesmerizing. Across the Pacific, California is trying to ban internal-combustion engines by 2035, a timeline that assumes the state still exists by then and hasn’t been sublet to wildfires.
Even war, the last reliable growth industry, is trying to modernize. Russia’s attempt to rebrand its invasion as a “special military operation” has met with the same success as calling a root canal a “special dental hug.” Ukraine, meanwhile, is trying to keep the lights on with generators powered by the sheer indignation of its Twitter feed. NATO is trying to look busy while secretly Googling “Article 5 for Dummies.” The rest of us refresh the news every 30 seconds, which counts as cardio.
And yet, despite the mounting evidence that trying is the fastest route to existential tennis elbow, humanity persists. Why? Because the alternative—acknowledging that the house always wins—requires a level of honesty currently reserved for customer-service chatbots. So we keep trying, like Sisyphus on a Peloton, hoping the next summit, swipe, or stock-option grant will finally be the one that lets the boulder stay put.
In the end, trying may be the only thing we still export without tariffs. It’s shipped in bulk from sweatshops, boardrooms, and refugee camps, stamped “fragile” but never handled with care. And somewhere in a climate-controlled warehouse, the last polar bear is trying to sign the delivery receipt, paw trembling, ice gone, dignity still somehow intact.
We tried, says the bear. We really did.
