The Joy of "Useless" Pursuits
Many introverts pursue quirky corners of knowledge or beauty out of sheer fascination. Isn’t that something we should applaud rather than discourage?
Every time I read about another college dissolving its Humanities departments or majors, I sigh. Parents and society at large are commanding young people not to study what they love, only subjects that employers reward with jobs that pay well from the start. Not art, philosophy, history, classics, music or literature, but technology, science and economics.
You might claim that this trend amounts to benevolent realism. Why waste time acquiring knowledge that has little value in the marketplace? Why burden yourself with harder-to-repay student loans and a sluggish start toward financial self-sufficiency?
Unfortunately, the more this viewpoint spreads, the less approval there is of pursuits that simply make one’s soul sing, the sort of ecstatic hobbies that introvert children and adults may dance themselves into with obsessive delight. According to this perspective, those are OK as a diversion, in the literal sense of a sidetrack, but they’re useless for the main trajectory of one’s life. Such enthusiasms had better be kept off to the side.
Yet I think of Russian-born Vladimir Nabokov – an introvert – and his passionate pursuit of butterflies from the age of seven. When he woke up and saw it was a sunny morning, his next thought was of the butterflies he could happily hunt that day. This quest of his necessitated an “acute desire to be alone, since any companion, no matter how quiet, interfered with the concentrated enjoyment of my mania,” Nabokov later wrote, after he became a famous author. “Its gratification admitted of no compromise or exception. Already when I was ten, tutors and governesses knew that the morning was mine and cautiously kept away.”
I think of artist Donald Evans, who during his New Jersey boyhood began drawing the stamps of dozens of countries that he invented, such as Frandia, Doland, Jermend and East and West Kuntsland. Each had its own flag, currency, rulers and so on. He was still constructing countries and their stamps – and exhibiting them as art – when he died young, at age 31. I remember reading about his inventions in the 1970s, admiring his incredibly detailed, fanatical creativity.
I think of the four dozen grownups from around the world in a Classical Chinese class I took online last year. Almost all of us were learning to decipher this compressed, philosophically rich language just because we found the unfolding of ancient meanings fascinating and fulfilling. By the measure of what’s productive, useful or able to be turned easily into financial or social capital, this pursuit might deserve a grade of “D.”
I also think back to a course I took in college about Utopian novels. Some of these described societies where people spent minimal effort working to ensure the basic needs of food, clothing and shelter. The rest of their time they devoted to self-fulfillment, whether through religion, art, athletics, cultural research or scientific projects. How far away from such a culture have we evolved! Today’s prevailing mindset argues that a respectable lifestyle requires a narrowly practical education and nose-to-the-grindstone concentration from grade school to at least middle age.
Ironically, however, the quirky delights of introverts, pursued with no thought of social usefulness, can turn into money-makers. Nabokov could probably have become a professor of lepidoptery (the scientific study of butterflies and moths). In the US, apart from writing and teaching literature at Cornell, he served as a volunteer entomologist at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History and also curated the butterfly collection at the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. In recent years, “butterfly houses” that visitors pay to experience have been created by museums and private entrepreneurs. Massachusetts alone has at least four such establishments.
Had he lived longer, Donald Evans would have had as good a chance as any serious artist to make a living from his creations. And the duo behind the Classical Chinese course I took not only turned their deep academic knowledge into an app that sells for $29.99 or $59.99, they also run an ever-expanding lineup of high-level Chinese-related courses at $299 a pop.
My argument is that delight in learning or in appreciating for its own sake deserves respect and encouragement. Although it may seem supremely impractical, this type of experience may become the foundation for someone making a living. And even when that doesn’t happen, curiosity, inquiry and enchantment have tremendous value in and of themselves. Therefore we need people pursuing and teaching art, philosophy, literature, languages and all the quirky corners of human possibilities. I believe introverts stand in the vanguard of those fields. What do you think?
Years ago I argued for celebrating useless delight in the first of many three-minute commentaries that I recorded for WBUR, the Boston NPR station. My radio essay rejected the proposition that kids should study music because it makes them smarter. You can listen here:
Marcia, this is a fascinating topic. I first entered university at the age of 27, and the liberal arts degree I earned (technically, I majored in English but took lots of other courses, such as philosophy, sociology, etc.) opened my mind to all sorts of ideas that a more technically oriented degree would not have.
Also, I believe that following one's interests is so important. In her book "The Long Game," Dorie Clark has a chapter titled something like "Optimize for Interesting." Following your interests is a great way to ensure that you'll enjoy your work, and that enjoyment is a key element of success.
So let's hear it for useless pursuits!