This isn't a completely fruitless task: much recent research suggests that will power is, in some ways, like a muscle and can be made stronger.
But telling lies from truths is a fruitless task in a book that tries to be as stylistically insane as its protagonist.
Between Martin Luther King quotes and Nina Simone lyrics, searching for evidence of the black British legacy can feel like a fruitless task.
So far, convincing Republican Party leaders to listen to an expert climate consensus has been a fruitless task, but there are signs that the party is starting to move in the right direction.
At the convention four years ago the region's Republican governors were leading men and ladies, helping in the fruitless task of softening the harsh image of the party's nominee, Bob Dole.
At least one former Labour security minister, Tony McNulty, whose fruitless task was to sell 42 days pre-charge detention to parliament, has since repented and argued the party "misjudged control orders, stop and search and others failed to strike the balance between public safety and liberty".
This can feel like a pipedream when working with some people: just getting them to turn up to appointments on time, or at all, can feel like an arduous and fruitless task; when they do arrive, developing a relationship built on mutual respect is the next hurdle.
He even searched graveyards in Sussex, and visited old addresses, in what seemed at first like a fruitless task.
"Overall, the process of using the documentation is an absolutely frustrating, time-consuming and ultimately fruitless task," read his report.
As a result, attempting to find a perfect test set where all the functions are present to determine whether an algorithm is better than another algorithm for every function is a fruitless task.
They won't concede that this is a fruitless task.
