A wise man once said, “Mowing the lawn is like a… um…well, yeah.” This quote will forever live on my heart, for it is succinct in its point: that it is simply pointless to try and point out the pointlessness of pointless tasks.

New Zealand expert Adam Toth – a dear friend of mine – recently spoke out about his hatred of several incredibly-complicated and near-incomprehensible societal activities: such things as “mowing the lawn,” “shoveling the snow,” and even the unusual human emotion of “responding to the weather.”

Though I am still a bit unclear as to Adam’s point (about there being a point to such pointless points), I feel the need to assert the absolute necessity of there being mundane activities within one’s daily life. If we didn’t have lawns to mow and leaves to rake, then what could we possibly complain about? The cultural/geo-political/ethical issues facing our society? Yeah, right. Like there’s anything else of important occurring right now.

It’s a slippery slope my friend. First you stop raking leaves because “hey, they’ll fall again next year”; then you skip your friend Jake’s birthday because “hey, it’ll come again next year”; then you go golfing during your wedding because “hey, I’ll be getting married again next year.”

Any Tolstoyan will gladly jump at the opportunity to mow your lawn simply for its aesthetic pleasure. To be outdoors! To breathe the air! To feel the sunshi– I mean, the clouds! These “pointless” tasks are in fact so damn pointy that you will likely spout blood from the very poke of them.

So what’s my point? Hell, I dunno. (and isn’t that really the point?)