You measure everything by usefulness and joy has no use
You judge everything by whether it is useful, productive, worthwhile — and by that measure, joy, play, and beauty fail, since they produce nothing and achieve nothing. So you discard them as wasteful, keeping only what is useful, and your life has become all tools and no treasure, all means and no joy.
Now here is a fine philosophical knot, and a fool loves nothing more than to untie one with a joke. The most precious things are gloriously useless — a sunset, a piece of music, a child's laughter, love, all useless by your test and among the most precious things there are, for the realm of the useless is exactly where beauty and delight and meaning live; to keep only the useful is to keep the tools and throw away the treasure. Usefulness is a servant that has made itself the master — meant to serve a good life, it has climbed into the master's chair and now demands even joy justify itself, which is upside down, the tool bossing the craftsman. So do something for no reason but that it is good — watch the sunset, play the pointless game, make the thing no one needs, letting the utility-master protest while you do the useless good thing anyway, loosening its tyranny. What good, useless things have you been discarding?
What changes unlock by starting
- You see the most precious things are 'useless'
- You put usefulness back in its servant's place
- You do things for no reason but their goodness
- You let useless joy back into your life