Doing Something Completely Pointless
BY ARLENE HARDER, MA, MFT
Today's Take-a-Break
Decide to do something this very day that has absolutely no purpose other than your enjoyment in doing it (keeping it legal, of course). |
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Like thousands (perhaps millions) of others, I was highly disappointed when the comic strip "Calvin and Hobbes" stopped running. I loved the exuberant joy of life exhibited by the young Calvin and his stuffed lion friend. Actually, of course, Hobbes is only a stuffed toy when adults are visible in the script. When they aren't there, he's a great buddy for Calvin, which is well illustrated in an expanded Sunday comics that ran three years ago.
In this script Calvin carries a red flag high over his head, running through the grass, balancing along a fallen tree, leaping on rocks across a stream, climbing a hill, running through the woods, climbing up, up, up into a tree, exchanging the red flag for a purple flag stuck in a high branch, running back through the woods, jumping down the hill, going back over the rocks, across the tree again, through the grass and then, running up to the tiger, calls, "Time!" Looking at the stop watch, Hobbes exclaims, "Wow. 15 minutes and 30 seconds." Calvin responds, "Ha. Beat THAT!" Then, in the last frame, Calvin comments, "Weekends don't count unless you spend them doing something completely pointless." Then Hobbes, who now has the purple flag, yells "Go!" and takes off, running to beat Calvin's record.
Ah, yes, Calvin, there is a great deal of pleasure in doing something completely pointless.
What have you done lately that is completely pointless? Of course, if you're recovering from the flu at this moment, you may think your life has been rather "pointless" because all you've been doing is lying around too tired to do anything "worthwhile." But it seems to me that doing nothing — but doing it with enthusiasm — benefits our souls better than doing nothing (or something) with resignation.
© Copyright 1998, Revised 2008 Arlene Harder, MA, MFT |
