Sunday Dispatch: A Most Useless Pursuit
There are two kinds of people in this world: those who rise on Sunday determined to conquer the day, and those who rise determined only to conquer the pillow. Both groups believe they are virtuous, which proves once and for all that virtue is a flexible thing, like elastic suspenders or congressional promises.
I began this Sunday with noble intent. I told myself, “Today I shall do something worthy, something memorable, something that future historians will record with trembling pens.” So naturally, I made a second pot of coffee and stared at the ceiling fan until the blades appeared to move backward. If you haven’t tried this, I recommend it—it is the closest thing to time travel available without government approval.
The newspapers (what few remain) would like you to believe that Sundays are for reflection, gratitude, and attending to your immortal soul. In practice, Sundays are mostly about losing track of socks in the laundry and deciding whether “brunch” is just breakfast with champagne, or lunch with delusions of grandeur. (It is both, and it is marvelous.)
Let me tell you about my latest useless pursuit: learning the harmonica. I bought one last week because the advertisement assured me that “any fool can play.” I took it as a personal challenge, being precisely the sort of fool they had in mind. After fifteen minutes of diligent wheezing, I discovered that what I had purchased was not an instrument but a portable method of annoying neighbors. The dog has moved to another room. My spouse, long-suffering, asked if I might consider learning the triangle instead.
But here’s the truth: there’s a kind of genius in useless pursuits. They take you out of the machinery of the week—the grinding, screeching, smoke-belching contraption we call modern life—and drop you into a quieter absurdity. On weekdays, when you waste time, it feels like theft. On Sundays, wasting time is the highest form of devotion.
Twain himself once said (or should have said, and probably would if I’d given him the idea) that “Man was created for two noble purposes: to overestimate his own importance and to find excuses for naps.” I can confirm both today.
So if you find yourself with a Sunday to spare, I urge you to choose something magnificently pointless. Fly a kite with no wind. Bake bread without yeast. Write a letter to your future self that begins, “Well, you old fool…” Or take up the harmonica, provided you have tolerant neighbors and a forgiving dog.
By evening, you will discover that the point of Sunday is not what you did, but what you didn’t. You didn’t hurry. You didn’t measure productivity in units. You didn’t bow to the tyranny of calendars. You lived like a human instead of a to-do list.
And that, friends, is a pursuit worth every wheeze, nap, and champagne-soaked pancake.
Julie Bolejack, MBA
