Mom and I were discussing some of the mindset shifts she’d experienced over the past few decades.
When she was younger, she was way more idealistic (in the highest-standard-of-being-only, don’t-force-me-to-accept-reality sort of way, not the I-recognize-and-appreciate-beauty-and-seek-to-share-it sense). Not that she has a lower standard or a jaded outlook now — if anything, her understanding and appreciation of what the ideal really is to her and how it could be lived out is much more robust now than it was back then.
She mulled over what her thoughts tended to be like during that time and how it’s changed. One significant shift stood out to both of us as she talked.
She’d stopped asking “What’s the point?” of anything and everything that didn’t fit that ideal.
(Imagine this question asked in a tone of dismissal tinged with frustration, with a shrug of just the left shoulder as the speaker turns their face away from you to the right. We’re not talking about an intentional, thoughtful wondering of whether something’s worth doing — this is more of a bitter acceptance of futility in pursuing this any further.1)
It used to be that, as a young mother, she’d spend every minute of downtime reading up on taking care of children and educating them, or cleaning the house, or grabbing that nap because the nights are often interrupted. Everything in her life was about her babies; everything else was put to the side, even relaxation or leisure when it could be afforded, because it wasn’t driving her forward in that one direction.
Then, at times, she’d turn around and see my dad on the sofa reading a kung fu novel or playing computer games after work. That infuriated her — she recognized he was tired from work and wanted to relax, as she did, but relax by doing these things? Seriously? What’s the point of winning that game or reading fiction as a new dad?! There are so many other more meaningful, important tasks to be done!2
(To quickly wrap up this story: That stage didn’t kill their love for each other. They’re still married.)
That’s only one example she shared of this mindset she used to have — needing everything not only to be useful and excellent and done right — but not doing anything she couldn’t justify according to that standard of logic and “rightness/bestness.”
Having children forced her to realize that life is more than ideals to be striven after (no matter if you can’t reach them). Life is also about appreciating the things you cannot control, about realizing that you must “dream, and not make dreams your master” as Kipling says, about accepting that not everything needs to be used to the max and fulfil an articulated purpose.
Life can just be.
If you’d want to engage with life in the first-person, this is something you’d eventually realize, as my mother did. The variety of plants, flowers, trees, animals, and bugs in nature prove this; design, art, and music wouldn’t exist were it not for “unnecessary creation”; even the fact that emotions exist and impact us indicate there’s more to life than just doing and having done.
Couldn’t the environment work just as well if we had one kind of each — tree, plant, animal, creeping thing? Aren’t we able to survive without a thousand different musical instruments and a million micro-tones? Wouldn’t people still have babies if sex didn’t feel particularly good?
Sure, it’s possible we’d still be here. But it wouldn’t be much of a life, would it?
So yes, it’s fine to like things that hold meaning and purpose. It’s wonderful to schedule and strategize your way to the most productive, intentionally-lived day you could ever have. It’s great if you choose to minimize your distractions, ditch the second (or third!) tablet/e-book you hardly use anymore, and focus on what matters.
Just remember that “what matters” sometimes lies outside of our carefully defined and tenaciously guarded definitions of “things that have a point to them.”
Like handing a flower or a meal to a stranger on the road who obviously couldn’t give you anything substantial in return. Or sending an email to a random-ish writer on the internet just to tell them how their words have impacted you. Or any creative work done out of love that only adds to the countless books, paintings, and songs already created and enjoyed and forgotten.
Isn’t there a saying somewhere about how something that’s done out of love, kindness, and gratefulness is never nothing, never wasted? Forgotten and seemingly useless in a world that likes to ask “what’s the point” to every thing, sure — but it’s still something.
Even if that “something” is only the process you’ve had to go through to create that work of art or complete that project. Maybe that’s the point of many
”pointless” things we keep trying to make excuses for or against.
Confucius once said this (in Chinese, of course — this is only a rough translation):
“To rank the effort above the prize may be called love.”
I think we can also substitute “journey” or “experience” or “understanding” for the word “effort” there. All work beautifully to illustrate this point further. If we ask ourselves to mentally write an argument essay for everything we do —and to not take action or try things out before we’ve written it perfectly and persuasively one way or the other — we might as well sit alone in a dark room and do nothing but let our thoughts spin in circles.
So — get up and fight your Goliaths. You’d never know whether they’d fall at your feet if you never pick up that stone and sling it. That’s why there’s no reason not to do so.
And as you do, remember that this particular version of “What’s the point?” was born from the heart of a coward who dare not understand and engage with life.
Odelia
Quote for the week
Something that impacted me in some way the past week, and think is worth sharing.
“Progress isn’t measure by the number of tasks we complete or the projects we finish. Progress is about getting back to work when things fail to materialize as we expected.” — coleb.blog
This week’s word: “Ringlorn”
Since the start of 2024, I’ve begun a project of writing 7 poems each week, using for my prompt an entry from The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows by John Koenig. I share the best from said project in this section.
ringlorn
adj. the wish that the modern world felt as epic as the one depicted in old stories and folktales—a place of tragedy and transcendence, of oaths and omens and fates, where everyday life felt like a quest for glory, a mythic bond with an ancient past, or a battle for survival against a clear enemy, rather than an open-ended parlor game where all the rules are made up and the points don’t matter.
*** Two miscellaneous verses If I pull this knife out of the squash, Do I get to reign over dinner? And would I be the household hero If I catch and kill that spider? *** If only life came with soundtracks That add glory to actions; Music would warn of danger, regret And heighten satisfaction. ***
Snapshots of life
Photos taken of things I’ve made or worked with, or places I’ve been the past week.
I’m falling in love again with chainmail jewellery making. The furthest/slimmest chain was my first bracelet, made 11 months ago. The dark one in the middle was completed last month; the chunky-looking chain in front was my main project this past week. Currently struggling with getting the hang of a couple other patterns!
Give this a peek
When you turn a pop song and internet memes into an almost-concert-level piece and a nicely-filmed video:
Bullet notes from my desk
Came across this cool idea from Darius Foroux this week — Work Journaling: “The purpose is to gain clarity on my strengths and weaknesses, learn where I can improve, highlight any mistakes I make, draft ideas for my business, and even explore how I feel emotionally about specific tasks or clients.” Maybe I should try doing this: all I write down about work-stuff are usually just to-do lists and the like, not anything that could be defined as “reflective.”
Been (re-)thinking more about the power of intensity these couple days. “It is better to dedicate two or three hours of intense focus to a skill than to spend eight hours of diffused concentration on it,” Darius (same guy as above) shared somewhere on his blog. Another line I’ve come across touches on what precedes that sort of concentration: “Don’t spend hours and days preparing yourself for something when all it takes is a moment of dedication.” Part of me is scared of intensity, of being intense — I’m still unpacking this within me, so I’m not entirely sure what’s causing it. But that fear is there, and it’s getting heavier over time.
The game-loving part of me also interprets this as asking whether this would move me forward in the game — “How many points would I earn/lose if I did this?”
Am I the only one getting Martha vs. Mary vibes here? (See Luke 10.)