The point of the pointless

I've been now around 2 months and a half working, handling requests and preparing deliveries pretty much every week: doing “useful” stuff.

Although the first question is: what's the meaning of “useful”. For me there's quite a few valuable professions, e.g. doctors, taxi drivers, farmers and fishermen, waiters. Not me. Even scientists give a more real fruit to society, compared to mine.

I'm being paid, that's true. But I'd rather be doing something for the nadaist cause, I'd be devoted to meaningless investigations and the like.

It's all a matter of time, isn't it? It's the practical problem to deal with: when you're working you don't find free time for whatever you like, when you're not working you want to spend your time on amusing stuff, something exciting and different, or perhaps you'd just like to repeat those very nice things you enjoyed so much in the past.

Psychological time actually becomes a bigger problem: you don't want to feel that you're wasting your time - particularly when you're about to die (I've never understood why exactly there's a relation between having a good time and a kind of examination you're supposed to pass before your death?) Anyway, it's even worse, it's a mystical or religious problem, since your time is limited and in consequence there's some questions without answer you may dare to ask about waiting for an answer.

Obviously everything, literally everything in a human mind, it's all about time.

And then, there's this guy I happened to meet, a writer who lives (starves) from his writing. It seemed he wanted to help me but he had enough of his own, anyhow there's a lot of courage he gave me, and something he told me I found very beautiful: “in literature there's no wasted time”. Even if you throw it away when you're finished, next time you try to write it, it will be better. Next thing you try to write, it will only become better.

I think he's right, and for sure it does not only apply to literature. A colleague at work told me that he feels the more or less the same about programming in Java. No doubt, if that's ok for him. Other people raise children.

The point is: you have your personal definition of your activity for which there's no wasted time, then you should just focus on it and not spend much time on anything else. If that activity becomes your job, then you'll get paid for it. If not, you'll have to sacrifice time for whatever useful you are able to do and entitles you to a salary, and the rest of your time will be devoted to the pointless.

And the point for you will be on the pointless, of course.

Animal death

I love dogs, when I was a child and a kid there's always been a dog around in my parents' place. (However, it's true I migh not like them so much, not enough since I've never had one myself at home, and even worse, my flatmate now has a small white hairy evil one and I'm getting tired of its barking, I think it's a dirty animal for a flat, etc.)

I'll put it in a different way: before leaving my parents' I've had quite a few dogs, and grew fond of them, felt affection (I'd say love if it wasn't such a big and important word). What I like the most it's playing with them. They're kind of simple of course, but so enthusiastic, devoted to whichever the game. They enjoy it even if it's square, they run after the carrot if needed and they like it.

And of course they die eventually, and it's tough, a couple of them went to my feet for the last breath and it hurt. However, there's another thing I've always liked about dogs, it's that they're all pretty similar; they're somehow different, smarter or sillier, fast and clumsy, fat and sharp, but essentially they're all the same, all so keen for games, for example. I quite easily end up liking my new dog as much as the dead one, even if I like it in a different way.


Some pet/dog lovers get a bit angry when I try to explain it. They tell me that I'm not being honest, that I am lying when I say I love dogs, and there's nothing I can say to change their minds.


But there's this very good friend who likes dogs as well, mostly the playing with them, as me, and he told me something I found very beautiful. He said he did not know if I was right or wrong, if there is a rightness or a wrongness applicable to what I was saying. Anyhow, he carried on, maybe it was just right, maybe it was just the right way to feel about death, and not only for animals, also for human beings. Not just about death, but the way to feel about people.

Quickly he asked me to forget about it, it was all nonsense, he said, it was around two months ago. From time to time I do remember, I spend some time thinking about rightness and wrongness, and I don't seem to quite get anywhere.

Old idea for a survey

I've been back to work and back to hospital... they took my gall bladder out, seems it is quite a useless organ, nothing to worry about. I'm at home, still resting, trying to reduce the number of painkillers I take a day. And I bought a plane ticket to Turkey for september. I'll leave if I've made enough money during these months so that I can survive without working for let's say half a year. If not, I'll leave anyway; it would be a waste to stay, the ticket is not refundable.

These days I have had a lot of time to think, even if my mind has been disarranged, chaotic, sedated, and I've remembered an old idea for a survey. It's a question to be asked to males only: do you feel different after a long time without sex? you loose control, you go nuts? you stop behaving yourself?

Take the extreme example of sexual abuses during military operations. Sometimes is taken as a "collateral" effect of a war, which is horrible anyway; maybe it is a deliberate intention for a "racial cleansing"; in some cases, like e.g. UN peacekeeping missions in Africa, it's just painful, awful, disgusting. However, no matter how terrible the abuses had been, no matter how much everybody regrets it and wants those involved to be severely punished, there's always a sort of thought that it is in some way "logical" that the military become rapist, since in their missions they're far away from women for such a long time, and men have "their needs".

Ok, the example is really extreme, but the question is not "how many months without sex would make you feel such an urge that you may rape a woman?" The question is only whether there is anything in your mind which changes at all; the point would never be to justify or discharge the rapists.


Anthropologists say sex roles are purely cultural, the result of the conflict for controlling reproduction.

Sometimes males say (although they would admit it's a cliché) they would do anything to get laid, and they claim women are able to control them through their either resistance or concessions. What happens if you don't play the game? You'll get bored? sour? crazy? just lonely?

Back to work and straight to hospital

Beginning of june I started working. It was a good chance that came up, as a freelancer, well paid, and for a maximum of 400 hours. (It's kind of weird to negotiate the maximum of hours, instead of the minimum.) Very quickly I realized it's not for me anymore, the nonsense of projects and consultants and different groups trying to make others responsible for their delays. Anyway, I said to myself, it was only for the money and for 2 or 3 months and after that I could take half a year holiday if I wanted to.

Second thing I realised, I didn't have time for anything anymore. The job was boring but that was not not an issue, it was just something that I had to do and I did it for the money. The problem was that it was the only thing that I would do during the day. Even if it was a normal journey of 8 hours, then I had to cook, and eat, and rest and relax a little, a shower in the morning, stuff like that, and there was no time left for anything else. Damn, I repeated to myself, "money... 2/3 months... half a year holiday".

But then it happened. The doctor does not quite agree, but for me it is clear. My body could not stand it anymore, and after 9 days, my pancreas tried to commit suicide...

However, it was not too tough, not as bad as it may sound. The day after, already in my hospital bed, the gentle nurses smiling and asking me, my answer was yes I was feeling much much better. A few days afterwards I was really ok, and before one week I was back to the streets... back to work.

Let's see if I can get my body to understand: it's a matter of money for 2/3 months, and then half a year holiday. If it does not want to understand, then of course there's nothing I can do and I'll have to take the holiday straight ahead... not in a hospital bed, I hope.