Usefulness and Uselessness

In this fast food era, people will always ask unconsciously: "What's the use of this?" When this sentence becomes a mantra, a kind of A terrible and grotesque habit has been formed: if it is useful to me, I will love it; if it is of no use to me, I will discard it. And such abandonment is taken for granted.

Useful, simply put, means that it has use value, is beneficial and beneficial to people. Paying attention to the use value can make things play their maximum function, which is understandable. But when everyone is flocking to the "useful", the "useless" is left out in the cold, and it can only retreat to a corner of the world and huddle up.

Obviously, it is useless, has only value, and has no use value. It does not seem to meet the development requirements of modern society. After all, natural selection means survival of the fittest, and "useless" people cannot escape the fate of being eliminated. Have you seen how many ancient alleys have been torn down, and useful wide roads have to replace useless narrow alleys. You may not have noticed, but many useless philosophy books have been shelved on the shelf, while useful economic books have been selling like hotcakes for a long time. In this era, we pursue speed, pursue immediate results, and be useful. It's useless, I can only watch the wheels of time rolling by quickly, but I can't do anything about it.

This is an era when pragmatism prevails. It is impatient and frivolous. It has no time to wait for uselessness, so it can only impatiently throw itself into the embrace of "usefulness" and become entangled with material things.

But how are the criteria for usefulness and uselessness divided? What is its definition in time and space? It is of no use in this world, but what about in the hereafter? If it is useless here, what about there? We seem to have no way of knowing, perhaps because we don’t have time to delve deeper, because we are all pushed forward quickly by invisible hands. No wonder, Wilde said: "I don't want to make a living, I just want to live." Making a living is useful, but living is useless. Therefore, modern people lack the pleasant mood of looking up at the stars and closing their eyes to experience life. To give up uselessness is actually to give up life itself. When practical and economical Wenzhou businessmen replaced the cafes and fast food restaurants on an ancient French street with a "clothing street," the French were dissatisfied, protested, and demanded "give me back the cafe." They need to be "useless" and need to live, and leisurely cafes in the afternoon are part of their lives. The French have a seriousness and persistence towards useless romance that is difficult for the Chinese to understand.

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Useful things are necessary for life; useless things are also indispensable. Useful is a touch of pink, with a strong rouge fragrance; useless is a cup of tea, with a faint flavor of life.

The Use of Uselessness

Zhuangzi said: Everyone knows the use of useful things, but they don’t know the uses of useless things. Compared with the materiality and benefits of useful uses, useless uses are too weak.

People judge the usefulness or uselessness of things based on their immediate interests and whether they bring actual value. A pen can be used to write, so it is a useful thing. Flowers, it seems, can only be used to please the eyes and the mind, so they can be regarded as useless things. Old Chinese farmers believe that growing flowers is something for rich people and a luxury. They did not see the useless use of flowers: as a large conceptual category, flowers are related to the stability of the biosphere. Without flowers, biodiversity will be severely reduced. Although flowers cannot bring direct material benefits, they can change our mood and beautify our lives little by little.

It can be said that useless things exude their special fragrance from angles that are ignored by people. These fragrances are scattered in the air that people breathe, and they are truly dependent on human beings. Therefore, Easily overlooked.

Uselessness is transparent and invisible, and their value can only be reflected "if they do not exist". As Zhuangzi said to Zi, the useful part of the earth for human beings is only a small piece that can be stepped on. From this, the earth is useless, but if only a small piece of the earth is left to be stepped on, the rest will be dug up. If we dig straight to the underworld, then human beings will become an isolated island. How can we walk poetically and live freely? On the pyramid of human life, the base is used for useless purposes. The higher you go up, the more useful functions become more obvious. As human beings move up step by step in the continuous progress and development of society, they gradually forget about the useless use on the base and treat it. He scoffed, but never thought that if the base no longer existed, people would fall to pieces.

History has proven that ignoring useless things is like accumulating viruses day by day. These viruses will eventually destroy all the gorgeous dreams of mankind.

For a long time, we have paid too much attention to the growth of GDF and the improvement of material living standards, but we have forgotten to maintain the ecosystem, reclaiming lakes for farmland, cutting down trees to build houses, and today we have also tasted the corresponding consequences, with the outbreak of various extreme weather. The fear in people's hearts is heightened every day. It is gratifying that the potential value of ecosystems has finally appeared in middle school textbooks. We know that the potential value lies in its direct value, that is, its usefulness.

If the useful thing is a bright gem, the useless thing is a dusty pearl. The sparkle of the gem is certainly dazzling, but the gentle inner meaning of the pearl is closest to life itself.