"Online quotes are vacant appeals to authority. I wish they would stop doing it to me." - Scott Kim

Such a quote is not a talisman. Focusing on the good coming from irrelevant pursuits is confirmation bias and applying such a quote broadly is a slacker's crutch. Let's look at all the semi-self-serious stoners, punks, drunks, libertarians, etc. contemplating the irrelevant... accomplishments? Only if we want to say "do no harm" is better than what they'd do with a bit more ambition.

you mean like many writers and painters of the twentieth century? Hmmm, yeah, can't think of anything they've ever done. James Joyce, never accomplished anything, I guess Kerouac, Faulkner and Hemingway never did anything. And as for Dostoyevsky, Beethoven and van Gogh, total slackers, not a single accomplishment between them.

Well excuse me for reiterating and crediting a concise appealing statement of a notion I share. I quote not as a talisman, but as making a point without reinventing the verbiage for it. I think it's pretty obvious to anyone on this site that the reference to "irrelevant" activities was not celebrating harmful behavior.

You're seriously equating "retro home photo printing" with "stoners, punks & drunks" just because it's "irrelevant"? Really? Is the difference not obvious? Do I really have to spell it out?

BTW: the USA was created by a bunch of libertarians.