In Praise of the Pointless Pastime

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What’s the point? A deceptively simple question that pops up far too often when someone admits to spending their free time rearranging digital furniture on The Sims, building tiny felt frogs with hats, or watching speedrun videos of people completing obscure 90s games in under four minutes. There’s a peculiar cultural pressure to make every second of life feel meaningful and, worse, productive. The obsession with monetising hobbies, curating them for clout, or aligning them with self-improvement turns the joy of ‘doing nothing much’ into something almost shameful.

But here’s where existentialism (yes, that old chestnut) offers a bit of salvation. The whole premise is that life doesn’t come pre-packaged with meaning. We create it ourselves. Meaning isn’t doled out like tokens in a waiting room. If your idea of a good evening is rearranging your books by spine colour or simulating the chaos of a fictional restaurant on a tablet screen, then that is meaningful. Because it matters to you. That’s the whole point.

We’ve all internalised the idea that hobbies need to be ‘going somewhere’. That they must build skills, produce outcomes, or be deemed impressive enough to mention in passing at a dinner party without getting a side-eye. But low-stakes fun – the sort that doesn’t need explaining or defending – is often the most honest expression of who we are when no one’s watching.

Not Every Hobby Needs a Hustle

It’s hard to pinpoint when exactly fun became a job application in disguise. Social media probably didn’t help, nor did the cultural obsession with the side hustle. If you knit, you’re asked why you don’t open an Etsy shop. If you game, someone’s bound to suggest streaming on Twitch. If you doodle in your spare time, apparently you should illustrate a children’s book.

But there’s a huge difference between ‘doing’ and ‘doing to show’. One fills you up. The other stretches you thin. Low-effort pastimes get a bad rap because they look lazy from the outside. But in reality, they’re acts of rebellion against burnout culture. You’re saying, “No thanks, I don’t want to optimise my brain function tonight, I just want to colour in a picture of a cat using an app where the colours fill in automatically”. And that’s fine. That’s more than fine.

The existentialists would argue that meaning doesn’t come from the activity itself, but from the choice to engage with it. Your time is your own. If you’re enjoying it, it’s not wasted. You don’t need to write a thesis on why you’re obsessed with ASMR videos or why you play the same level of a game over and over just to hear the soundtrack. You just like it. That’s enough.

The Joy of Doing Something Silly

There’s something beautiful about enjoying a pointless pastime and not telling anyone. Not posting about it. Not needing validation for it. Just sitting there, quietly arranging imaginary items in imaginary spaces or making playlists with very specific themes like “songs that sound like a puddle being splashed in slow motion”.

The irony is, these things often feel more ‘real’ than the things we’re pressured into doing. They’re not about outcome, they’re about momentary delight. Like spinning a wheel in an online game, knowing full well the reward is a digital sticker and a short-lived serotonin hit. It doesn’t matter. It gave you a thrill. You smiled. Isn’t that worth something?

Even the rise of online casinos, with their flashing lights and low-stakes offers, taps into this. Most people aren’t playing at these sites to win the big one. They’re just chasing a flutter of excitement between work, chores, and endless scrolling. Casino networks have come to realise this, which is why so many of their brands now focus on the promise of a good time rather than the prospect of massive bonuses that look great in theory but never actually land. These days, most people gamble for fun rather than with the expectation of winning. It’s not so different to doing a jigsaw you’ll box up again tomorrow or feeding virtual fish in a tank that doesn’t exist. The point is you’re there. You chose it. You showed up for it. And it showed up for you.

Let People Like Things (Including Yourself)

There’s a whole moral layer that gets slapped on top of hobbies now. If you’re not volunteering, creating art, improving your mind, or breaking a sweat, the thing you enjoy can be labelled as shallow. But the idea that pleasure has to be justified by outcome is a bit depressing, really.

Low-stakes fun offers something the high-performance stuff can’t: freedom. You can walk away from it whenever you like. No pressure. No expectations. Just pure, consequence-free play. That’s important. Especially in a world where almost everything is monetised, tracked, judged, or filtered through a screen that’s counting clicks.
And for those still tangled in the guilt of ‘not doing enough’, here’s a little existential comfort. You don’t owe anyone a perfect narrative arc. You’re allowed to do things that are weird, boring, or utterly nonsensical to everyone but you. You’re not a character in someone else’s story. You’re the author of your own, even if some chapters are just about learning how to make pixel art toast or training a virtual dog to do flips.

The idea that we must earn our leisure by justifying it is absurd. Not everything has to be ‘for’ something. Not everything needs an audience. Sometimes a thing just is, and that’s where its value lies.

You Don’t Need a Reason to Enjoy Yourself

There’s a lovely sort of clarity that comes from embracing the pointless. It strips away the posturing, the productivity guilt, and the need to perform. Low-stakes hobbies are, by their very nature, resistant to judgment. They exist in the quiet in-between spaces where you remember what it’s like to enjoy something just because it makes you feel a bit better for a little while.

Existentialism reminds us that we’re the ones assigning meaning to life, whether we’re deep in a philosophical discussion or stuck on level 34 of a match-three puzzle game. There’s no need to frame it, sell it, or defend it. If it makes you feel like yourself, then that’s all the meaning it needs.

So next time you catch yourself feeling sheepish about the silly, small things that bring you joy, remember this: you’re not failing at life, you’re customising it. And if that means spending your Sunday night playing a farming simulator where your biggest achievement is harvesting pixelated turnips, so be it. It matters because it matters to you. That’s the only rule that counts.