Useful pleasures

Sometimes when we talk about the importance of being useful in your networks, in attention markets, people add “or you can be entertaining…”.

I blame the Puritan, protestant streak in our psyche for that. Something that connects utility with functional, work-like stuff. And sees entertainment as other, as a pleasure, and pleasure a somehow being separate from being useful to us. like at some level all pleasures are guilty ones.

puritans Useful pleasures

Thanks to Curtis for showing a nice Charles Eames quote that reminds us to question thought habits like that.

eames Useful pleasures

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One Response to Useful pleasures
  1. cpev
    May 21, 2009 | 9:26 am

    Guilty as charged. I do this all the time.

    But even folding entertaining into useful leaves a gap – maybe best described as frivolous?

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