Crazy Ass Planet

I decided to post this here although it’s posted on my other blog, Writelife. But despite a couple of posts this week here, on Crazy Ass Planet, and few lame comments I’ve left on a few blogs, the following is applicable (sorta) here is well. Anyway, for what it’s worth:

In praise of pointlessness – a eulogy?

I have not posted anything on any of my blogs in the last few days and I’ve been wondering why. The answer kept coming back: I had nothing to post about. I started mulling that over.

First, I wondered why I had nothing to post. The answer was that I actually had much I could have posted but, having had a busy and intense work week, my brain was reluctant to engage in anything else that might have even a slight relationship to “work.”

I was burned out. I didn’t wanna do it.

But then I wondered why I felt I needed to post “about” something. Why did I feel there needed to be a point, a purpose, to a post? I then realized I have been too long in the western culture of purpose and productivity.

Much of the fun of blogs, at least many that I visit, is the lack of a point. I enjoy the fact that I will not likely be a better man for having read a post. I like that there’s a good chance I won’t learn anything new, certainly nothing new that is worthwhile, in my online travels.

One of my favourite online encounters was the silly “Numa, numa” thing I came upon a while back. Given the way the damn thing spread like an STD over the Internet, I was not alone in finding it marvelously pointless.

Sometimes the best point is no point. But it’s awfully difficult to communicate that to people. In the past, before everyone had a computer and was online, people would ask me why I had a computer, an Internet connection and so on. I almost always had to frame my responses in a way that communicated function. They could not see a point until they saw a purpose, a function.

This may seem odd today when the Internet – indeed, the world – seems to be drowning under wave after wave of utter crap (seen YouTube?). Crap and war, that seems to be what we’re into these days. (Perhaps the war business is why we’re so hot for worthless crap – it can be a nice diversion, I suppose.)

But the crap is not pointless. In the west at least, even pointlessness must have a point. A purpose. A function.

And that point is, of course, the point of all points – profit. Companies are falling all over themselves to generate as much pointless material as possible because they are leaping upon perceived “revenue generating possibilities.”

So we are awash in rubbish.

I suspect, however, this triumph of the trivial will be short-lived. Pointlessness does have a point – a genuine point. It serves as a relief from our obsessive purposefulness. One of the reasons Microsoft is so ubiquitous, and remains so, is that while they were growing they were also largely focused on purpose. Look at all the damn business apps – documents and spreadsheets. All that data!

Pointlessness is necessary but it’s like dessert. Desserts, as desserts, are wonderful. But as a meal? It’s a good way to make yourself feel sick.

You know, as I conclude it occurs to me that this post about pointlessness had a point, one which I think I may have lost now, and that pleases me as it makes the post, as a whole, really rather pointless.

Tags: Pointlessness, Blogs, Internet, Web

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