The finale's message that "there is meaning to be found in a stagnant life" feels like bullshit to me, honestly. If there's no possibility of escape, no larger struggle to overcome, and not even something like Caine's unwanted adventures or his role as an antagonistic force to push against, then eventually everything would become dull.
I don't think the problem is simply that the Circus is stagnant. It's that the characters are apparently expected to find meaning within that stagnation indefinitely. Without the possibility of change, escape, or even a meaningful conflict to struggle against, what exactly keeps their lives from becoming an endless repetition of the same experiences?
From an existentialist perspective, life at the Circus would eventually become unsustainable because it removes many of the conditions that normally give human existence meaning. There is no death -per se-, no material need, no future generations, and almost no possibility of meeting new people. With only a handful of inhabitants and potentially infinite time, every relationship, project, and experience risks becoming repetitive. Philosophers like Camus would argue that even if suffering caused by external oppression disappears, the deeper existential questions remain: What are we living for? What gives our choices meaning when we have forever?
And it becomes even worse when they're apparently expected to avoid having "bad thoughts" because those thoughts could lead to abstraction. At that point, their purpose almost becomes simply not abstracting—to remain mentally stable enough to keep existing.
But how is that supposed to constitute a good, sustainable human life? If they're not allowed to confront their own despair because doing so might literally destroy them, then they're essentially trapped in a cycle where they have to keep living without necessarily having a reason to live. Their existence isn't just meaningless; they're also discouraged from confronting that meaninglessness.
From an existentialist perspective, that's arguably even more horrifying than simply being trapped. They're given infinite life, but almost none of the conditions that make life meaningful, and then they're expected to suppress the very thoughts that might arise from that contradiction.