"12 So I turned to consider wisdom and madness and folly. For what can the man do who comes after the king? Only what has already been done.13 Then I saw that there is more gain in wisdom than in folly, as there is more gain in light than in darkness. 14 The wise person has his eyes in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I perceived that the same event happens to all of them. 15 Then I said in my heart, “What happens to the fool will happen to me also. Why then have I been so very wise?” And I said in my heart that this also is vanity. 16 For of the wise as of the fool there is no enduring remembrance, seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. How the wise dies just like the fool! 17 So I hated life, because what is done under the sun was grievous to me, for all is vanity and a striving after wind.
18 I hated all my toil in which I toil under the sun, seeing that I must leave it to the man who will come after me, 19 and who knows whether he will be wise or a fool? Yet he will be master of all for which I toiled and used my wisdom under the sun. This also is vanity. 20 So I turned about and gave my heart up to despair over all the toil of my labours under the sun, 21 because sometimes a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it. This also is vanity and a great evil. 22 What has a man from all the toil and striving of heart with which he toils beneath the sun? 23 For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity."
Ecclesiastes 2:12-23
The point that is being made in 12b is this: if a king, with all the resources at his command, cannot find satisfaction in this way, what hope or chance can there be for any other man? Indeed, the king's successor in office will fare no better than he, for he will be condemned to the same failure. In the verses that follow (13ff) we see a repetition in human experience of the same kind of cycle that is seen in nature, and described in the opening verses of chapter 1. Perhaps there is more significance than we had suspected in the familiar phrase we use to describe all this - the 'round' of pleasure, for do we not always come back to 'square one'? Wisdom and folly are contrasted, it is true, in these verses, and the former is infinitely better than the latter. Yet, death levels both the wise and the foolish (14-16), as indeed do other less ultimate realities, such as sorrow or bereavement. And all is therefore vanity, if this life is all there is. The statement in 17, 'therefore I hated life' is all the more impressive when set in the context of 2:1-11. This is a moment of truth indeed. What a verdict of 'no confidence' this passes on such a life! We recall an incident that took place many years ago at a student mission when over coffee one day with one of the brightest and wildest students, an attractive personality who was certainly living it up in style, we got to discussing ultimate things, and asked him, 'Alistair, are you happy?' We shall not easily forget his answer, as with widened eyes, he said, 'Me, happy? Oh no!' And in so saying, he surely said it all. That is the message here.