I am a fan of useless things. I don't mean like scrap metal or reality T.V. stars, though those have their place. No I mean art, music, movies, and that kind of thing. I am sure from context you deduced that I didn't use the word useless as a derogatory term, but just in case you couldn't suss out what I meant allow me to explain.
Human beings are animals. Clever apex predators who attempt to pose as higher beings for the sake of our own hubris. Our basic need to mate, live in shelter, and consume food and water makes us animals. We like to make our shelters big, though I will admit the utility of massive amounts of resources stored for future use is useful, it doesn't make us anything more than squirrels burying nuts. I feel the need to clarify that I don't think badly of my species, I just think it tends to put on airs.
Music, art, movies, and the like are not necessary things. But on that note, neither are cars or marketing or anything in the hospitality industry. These merely make surviving easier, but are in no way a requirement of survival. If the world were to fall in a nuclear war and people roamed the blasted wasteland, you would not worry about ads or whether or not the place you hide at night provides mints on your pillows. And while I will admit a car would make travel easier, it is far from necessary for a trip.
All of this extra stuff is fluff that makes life more bearable, and is the result of humans getting so good at surviving that it became less and less a worry for our species as a whole. The second that survival isn't so hard that it takes up all of our time we gain free time, and what happens when people get bored? They fiddle, explore, and generally fuck with their environs. At first this is just to make the surviving even easier. We created cities, and farms, and gave ourselves even more free time. we got so good at agriculture we only needed some people to do it, so others ended up focusing on other things. This was the birth of philosophy (which evolved into science). People had time to sit and ponder esoteric questions, like "why do I exist?". They had time to make written language, mythologies, and religions. If necessity is the mother of invention, then free time is the proud papa.
Things like music and art are also something that comes from this free time. Every culture on the planet has music and art. Its amazing and beautiful that humanity is able to create "useless" aspects of culture. And it turns out that activities like dancing and music even serve a purpose biologically! We are inherently emotional as a species and anything that creates catharsis keeps us sane (wow that link makes my point better than I ever could).
There are people out there who call art and music useless in the derogatory sense of the word. These people believe that artists, musicians, and actors waste their lives because they are not doing something that serves society as a whole. They don't make money, they don't provide for whatever self-aggrandizing bullshit "need" is valuable so they're failures. They say things like "get a real job" or "grow up" when talking to/about creatives. These people are assholes.
This point kind of branches off from my last post. We project value on a lot of things, and to try and validate this ultimately arbitrary decision we compare our choices with other people's choices (all of which are a kind of aesthetics), and when these choices differ some people lash out. This clash of ideals is what causes fundamentalism and other forms of intolerance. Some people value artistic expression, while others value the purpose they find from being a doctor or policeman, or even just in being a secretary. Those who would berate other's personal values can go fuck themselves. Don't try to tell other people how to live. If you are so bewildered at why they would chose that life, have a discussion with that person, get to know them better. Have empathy for your fellow human, we could use it now more than ever.
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