Latest / The Comeback Story: Real Stories of Resilience, Courage & Reinvention / Why Your Useless Art Is Actually Saving You: The Beauty of Purposeless Creation | The Comeback Story
Transcript
- What if the most important thing you made this week was something that served absolutely no purpose at all? Let’s sit with that for a second, because I think you’ve been tricked into believing that everything you do needs to earn its keep. I want you to picture your last Tuesday. Or maybe it was Wednesday. Maybe it’s today, right now as you’re listening to me. What did you do with your hands? Did you answer emails? Did you fold laundry so perfectly that it could stand up on its own? Did you meal prep containers like they were little military barracks, organized by color and caloric content? We live in a world that is obsessed with output. It whispers to us from every screen, every billboard, every well-meaning friend that if it isn’t moving the needle, it isn’t worth the time. We have become experts at efficiency. We have turned our hobbies into side hustles and our rest into guilt disguised as relaxation. But here is the quiet truth that I am holding gently in my hands for you today: you are allowed to make things that go nowhere. You are allowed to create art that doesn’t sell, write poems that don’t get published, build structures that will eventually collapse under the weight of rain. There is a profound liberation in the useless. And I don’t mean useless in the sense of wasted time. I mean useless in the way a cloud is useless to a farmer, but essential to the sky. Let me tell you about a bowl I threw three years ago. It was supposed to be a centerpiece for a dinner party I was hosting. I had spent weeks planning the menu, picking the candles, curating a playlist that sounded expensive even though I was broke. I wanted everything to be perfect. So, I went to this pottery wheel class, thinking, how hard can it be? Spin clay, shape it, fire it, use it. Easy. I sat down at the wheel, nervous and excited. I centered the clay, which is harder than it looks, like trying to balance a spinning top while riding a unicycle. I pulled up the walls. They wobbled. I tried to steady them. They collapsed. I tried again. They slumped. By the end of the hour, I had a lopsided, thick-walled disc that looked less like a bowl and more like a melted tire. I was furious. I felt like a failure. I told my instructor, 'This is pointless. I can’t even make a simple vessel.' She looked at me, wiped her hands on her apron, and said, 'You didn’t come here to make a bowl. You came here to feel the clay. Stop trying to control it and just let it be messy.' That sentence stuck with me. Not because I suddenly became a master potter—I still can’t throw a straight line—but because she gave me permission to stop performing productivity. We are so terrified of being useless that we wrap ourselves in utility like armor. If I’m not learning a language, I’m wasting my potential. If I’m not meditating for twenty minutes, I’m not healing. If I’m not networking, I’m falling behind. This mindset is exhausting. It turns life into a series of checkboxes rather than an experience to be lived. When we strip away the need for our creations to have a function, we strip away the anxiety of expectation. Think about a child playing with mud. They aren’t trying to build a foundation for a future house. They aren’t trying to demonstrate their engineering skills. They are pressing their fingers into the dirt, feeling the cool, wet texture, watching it drip through their toes. In that moment, there is no goal. There is only presence. That is what we lose when we demand purpose from every action. We lose the ability to simply be. We lose the joy of the process. And honestly, the process is where the magic happens. The outcome is just a footnote. The real story is written in the hours you spent getting your hands dirty, even if nothing ever grew from it. There is a difference between creating for validation and creating for expression. One feeds the ego; the other feeds the soul. When we create for validation, we are constantly looking over our shoulder, wondering if anyone is watching, if anyone likes, if anyone approves. We become actors on a stage, waiting for applause before we dare to move. But when we create for expression, the audience is just us. Maybe it’s a journal entry no one will ever read. Maybe it’s a sketchbook filled with strange, abstract shapes that mean nothing to anyone but you. Maybe it’s singing off-key in the shower because the song feels good in your chest. These acts are useless to the market. They generate no revenue. They build no personal brand. But they build something far more valuable: your connection to yourself. They remind you that you are alive, that you have desires, that you have a voice that doesn’t need to be amplified by likes or shares to be valid. This kind of creation is a rebellion against a culture that demands constant optimization. It is a quiet act of defiance. It says, 'I exist for more than my output.' I want you to think about something you made recently that wasn’t perfect. Maybe it was a meal that burned slightly at the edges. Maybe it was a gift you wrapped unevenly. Maybe it was a letter you wrote and then crumpled up. We usually discard these things, ashamed of their flaws. But what if we kept them? What if we saw them not as failures, but as artifacts of your humanity? Perfection is sterile. It has no fingerprints. It has no heartbeat. Imperfection is where the heart lives. It’s where the tremor of your effort shows through. When you allow yourself to make useless, imperfect things, you are practicing self-compassion. You are telling yourself that you are worthy of play, even when you are bad at it. Even when you are tired. Even when you are unsure. This practice spills over into every other area of your life. You become less rigid. More forgiving. More willing to take risks. Because if you can survive making a terrible bowl, you can survive a rejected proposal. If you can survive a failed painting, you can survive a awkward conversation. The stakes lower. The fear shrinks. And in that space, creativity flourishes. So here is my challenge to you this week. I want you to make something. Just one thing. And it must serve absolutely no purpose. It cannot be a craft you sell. It cannot be a project that improves your home. It cannot be a skill that helps your career. It can be anything. Draw a circle. Stack rocks until they fall. Write a poem about the color blue. Bake cookies that taste okay but look terrible. Knit a scarf that is too long and unravel it. The only rule is that you must do it for the sake of doing it. Notice how it feels in your body. Notice if your mind tries to judge you. Notice if you feel guilty for taking thirty minutes out of your day. Sit with that discomfort. Acknowledge it. And then keep going. Tell me about the day you decided to try again, not to achieve, but to feel. Because I promise you, in those moments of useless creation, you will find a piece of yourself that has been waiting in the shadows. You will remember who you were before the world told you who to be. And that memory is precious. It is enough. It is everything. Thank you for sitting with me today. Thank you for trusting me with your time, your attention, and your heart. Remember, you don’t have to earn your rest. You don’t have to justify your joy. Just be. Be messy. Be useless. Be beautifully, wonderfully human. I’ll see you in the next one. Take care of yourself.