Purposelessness
Simply put, any behavior that's pleasure-directed, rather than goal-directed warrants being understood as purposeless. Typically, such behavior is extemporaneous, uncalculated, spontaneous, and objectless. Its motive isn't pragmatic. Nor is it engaged in for any monetary reward. And though it may involve performing for others, such performance is embarked upon for its own intrinsic satisfaction. It's not competitive, and it's not really designed to win anything, or impress anybody. It's entered upon merely for the innocent, diversionary enjoyment of it.
How often have we’ve been told that this is where we find the love for what we do?
Whenever you undertake an activity solely for itself, when, it's inherently pleasurable for you, it can be seen as purposeless. Because it's not taken on for others' recognition, or accomplish any preset goal, it's literally pointless. From a utilitarian perspective, it's counter-productive, useless. It simply makes you feel good.
Consider the nothingness of gazing at fish leisurely swimming back and forth in a tank, idly looking out the window at trees and shrubs or contemplating the still, peaceful surface of a lake.
Aware that none of their illustrations depict anything that can nurture our physical bodies, they, nonetheless, identify such experience as offering sustenance for our souls. For not only do they favorably change our brain chemistry, they also help us toward an inner calm and sense of well-being.
So despite being engaged in an activity for its own delightful sake, it's still important to realize its benefits. For such pointless behavior can have the most enviable side-effects. At once it can serve the healthy functions of emotional release, self-expression, self-entertainment, and the hardy restoration of physical, psychological, and spiritual balance. Even though the behavior may be too spontaneous, hastily considered, or even self-indulgent to be perceived as purposeful, that hardly prevents it from having all sorts of positive ramifications.
So what on one level may seem quite fruitless is, on another, extremely valuable. And these authors have similar things to say about the goal-less behavior of laughter, noting that hearty laughter is a genial exercise of the body, a form of inner jogging.
Psychology Today
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