The Path of Useless Effort: Beauty Beyond Utility

Why climb a mountain? For the photo? For the training? To achieve something? These answers often ring hollow at altitude. The Hodja appreciated activities that were useless in the conventional sense—beautiful, engaging, clarifying, but not economically productive. Mountaineering is the quintessential useless effort: you climb something only to come back down, you invest tremendous resources to gain altitude you must lose again. From a utility perspective, it's absurd. From Nasreddin's perspective, this absurdity is its beauty. The examined joyful life isn't measured in productivity; it's measured in presence, attention, engagement with reality as it actually is. Mountains and high places offer pure engagement without the distraction of utility. You can't monetize the view. You can't make efficient the struggle against altitude. These experiences are gloriously, comically useless—and that uselessness is what makes them precious. By climbing a mountain without needing it to mean anything (no record, no fame, no benefit beyond the doing), you engage life on its own terms. Nasreddin would laugh with delight at mountaineers: they're living the examined joyful life, wasting time in the highest and most meaningful way.