Zero purpose
Chris at Uncountable Thoughts is running this month's IndieWeb blog carnival on Purpose. I'm continuing some of my thoughts in Why not? in a sort of anti-purpose vein. This is also related to my life's motto: if something is worth doing, it's worth doing badly.
There's open water swimming at my local reservoir and last Sunday I was bobbing along the course watching the cormorants swooping, the fish jumping, the sun breaking through the clouds... and trying not to get run over by all the people barrelling round doing front crawl as fast as they can.
They are probably in training for a triathlon and going off to do a Parkrun or cycle around the reservoir - or both - when they finish here. They probably look at me and think, what is the point? They are also thinking, Get out of the way. I do try to keep off to side. I'm here for the view, is what I like to say.
I spent twelve years writing novels that just live in a box in the attic. I grow onions at probably a greater expense than I could buy them at the shop. I'm still practising my Victorian handwriting. I reject minmaxing.
It would be easy to say, Why bother? What do I get out of it? What's the point? It would be easy to fall for hustle culture and the push to monetise your hobbies. What if I got really good at calligraphy - then I could do commissions. (I'm not going to get really good at calligraphy. That's not something I need to worry about.) Productivity and efficiency. And that's all fine! Being productive is great! But productivity doesn't have to be the all-encompassing purpose of everything.
I try to remember to just try stuff. Do things that don't seem to have any purpose. Or where the only purpose is it might be fun. (It might not be fun, in fact. But I will have done something new.) Write bad novels. Do 'pointless' things. Reject purpose. Embrace chaos.