be useless
Literature, philosophy, and art – the humanities! – continue to get devalued. Fiction can be entertaining, sure, but it can also be more than that. Lessons I've learned from books have shaped the way I think about the world, and life in general. The same goes for philosophy, art, and poetry. I wouldn't want to live in a world without them, so they are not valueless in my eyes.
It seems, to me, that there are two groups of people: those who think poetry is useless, and those who think it has the power to transcend. I have even roughed out an outline at some point for a one act play about this. In it, an accountant and a poet are pitted against one another during tax season. And they do not understand one another at all.
Now, as a creative type, I try to think of ways to lean into that valuelessness. How do you keep going when the world doesn't seem to want what you create? Each time I have this thought, into my brain pops one person, a poet: Matsuo Bashō (birth name Matsuo Kinsaku). Bashō changed his name during his life, picking the name of a tree as his pen name instead of his birth name.
He saw this tree as a mirror. He identified with it in some way. He even wrote about it. In his words (well in the words translated by Nobuyuki Yuasa):
The leaves of the Bashō tree are large enough to cover a harp. When they are wind-broken, they remind me of the injured tail of a phoenix, and when they are torn, they remind me of a green fan ripped by the wind. The tree does bear flowers, but unlike other flowers, there is nothing gay about them. The big trunk of the tree is untouched by the axe, for it is utterly useless as building wood. I love the tree, however, for its very uselessness... I sit underneath it, and enjoy the wind and rain that blow against it.
So, he took the name of the tree he loved and, in 1684, he left all of his possessions behind and started his first major journey. He wrote a vivid account along the way, The Record of a Weather-exposed Skeleton, a travel journal in which he paired haiku poems with prose, a form known as haibun. Its first haiku:
Determined to fall
A weather-exposed skeleton
I cannot help the sore wind
Blowing through my heart
Bashō left everything and went on a journey that fundamentally changed him. The accountant in my play cannot understand the change that happens within a person because it cannot be seen or tallied up. The poet cannot understand the worldly attachments weighing down the accountant. I'm not picking a side and saying that one is more "right" than the other. I just think we have to consider what we may lose by getting rid of the so-called "valueless" poet.
But, I know I'm biased. I love haikus. I read them. I write them. I even proposed to my wife by way of a haiku. Here's one I typed up, paired with a pressed flower, and framed – all in the name of fun:
When I worry about the commercial value of something I write, or about the day-to-day grind of living, I forget about the experience of being alive and of writing. Bashō warned against this:
What is important is to keep our mind high in the world of true understanding, and returning to the world of our daily experience to seek therein the truth of beauty. No matter what we may be doing at a given moment, we must not forget that it has a bearing upon our everlasting self which is poetry.
He's not saying to leave it all and never come back. The lessons earned on the journey are for use in the every day. Even if you are an accountant, you can find time to be useless and gain depth from the experience.
After his long journey, Bashō had nothing material to show for his efforts except for a few words in a journal. It even appears that he is worse off than before. But it doesn't seem to bother him. He ends with a haiku:
indoor animal is curated by a human: Tim Papciak. On Mondays, he shares one link to one music video to help spark creativity in himself and in other creative types. On Thursdays, he recommends a book, movie, show, art piece, or link to some dusty corner of the internet that he believes either 1.) adds to the human experience, or 2.) serves as a coping mechanism in the year 2025. Note: this is not, and never will be, self-help content.