ONLY THE USELESS ARE TRULY FREE
- Madhukar Dama
- May 23
- 4 min read
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I. INTRODUCTION: THE CRUEL MEASURE OF WORTH
From the moment you are born, the world starts measuring you.
Can you walk early?
Can you speak well?
Can you win awards?
Can you earn money?
Can you provide something — to someone?
This measurement never ends.
It becomes your identity.
You are useful — or you are nothing.
But here lies the trap:
The more useful you are, the more trapped you become.
Because your usefulness binds you to roles, expectations, systems, and servitude.
Only the person who is seen as useless —
the one no one wants to claim or control —
can live without being owned.
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II. WHO IS CONSIDERED USEFUL?
The obedient student.
The high-scoring candidate.
The productive employee.
The sacrificial mother.
The married man with income.
The spiritual guru with followers.
The activist who gets media attention.
The artist who sells their pain.
Each one is useful to a system, a story, or a status.
They are fed, praised, promoted —
as long as they stay relevant to someone else's need.
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III. THE TRAP OF BEING USEFUL
1. Usefulness is never yours — it is always someone else’s.
A son is useful to his parents' dreams.
A wife is useful to her in-laws' reputation.
An employee is useful to a company’s profit.
A teacher is useful to the syllabus, not to the student’s truth.
2. Usefulness is conditional.
The moment you stop producing, adjusting, or serving —
you are replaced.
People don’t mourn your absence.
They mourn your utility.
3. Usefulness erodes your soul.
To be useful, you must often:
Lie.
Pretend.
Compromise.
Suppress.
Perform.
And every performance chips away at who you are.
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IV. WHO IS CALLED USELESS?
The elderly who cannot work.
The woman who refuses marriage.
The man who leaves his high-paying job.
The dropout child who follows his own rhythm.
The village grandmother who sits under a tree and says nothing.
The farmer who grows food but earns no profit.
The beggar who asks but does not contribute.
The sick person who can only receive.
These people are discarded, dismissed, judged.
They are told:
“You are nothing. You are a burden.”
But look closer —
these are often the only ones who aren’t trapped.
They are:
Not performing.
Not adjusting.
Not running.
Not chasing.
Not pretending.
They are free — in a way the “useful” never are.
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V. USEFULNESS IS A CONTRACT.
It says:
“I will serve you, if you validate me.”
“I will obey, if you feed me.”
“I will exist, only if I contribute.”
Break this contract — and you are erased.
That’s why most people can’t stop being useful.
Even when exhausted.
Even when dying.
Even when broken.
Because they are terrified of becoming what society fears the most:
Useless.
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VI. USELESSNESS IS FREEDOM IN DISGUISE
When the world no longer wants you:
You can finally ask: “What do I want?”
You can finally rest.
You can finally listen.
You can finally stop proving.
That’s why so many people say:
“I only found peace after I lost my job.”
“I only became myself after my divorce.”
“I only started living after my illness.”
“I only understood love when I had nothing left to give.”
Because when you stop being useful,
you stop being owned.
And only the unowned can be free.
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VII. HISTORICAL & CULTURAL EXAMPLES
Lao Tzu walked away from the palace.
He wrote Tao Te Ching after becoming "useless" to the state.
Buddha left his kingdom.
His usefulness as a prince ended — and truth began.
Meera Bai was called mad.
She refused roles of wife or queen — and became immortal through surrender.
Many Indian sages lived in forests.
They owned nothing. Offered nothing. Just were.
A tribal woman who never stepped in a school might be called illiterate —
but she knows every plant, every cloud, every signal of the earth.
These people were not useful.
They were dangerous to a system built on control.
Because they refused the leash of productivity.
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VIII. MODERN SUFFERING IS JUSTIFIED THROUGH USEFULNESS
You are told to stay in toxic jobs “because it pays.”
Women are told to adjust in abusive homes “because of family.”
Artists are told to commercialize “for exposure.”
Parents force children into slavery called school “for future.”
It is never about joy, meaning, presence, or truth.
It is always about function, production, status.
So we suffer quietly.
Because our usefulness becomes our excuse to avoid freedom.
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IX. THE LONELINESS OF FREEDOM
To stop being useful is not easy.
People will mock you.
Friends will fade.
Family will gossip.
Your own mind will panic.
But slowly, something returns:
Silence.
Space.
Choice.
Breath.
You begin to see what you were never allowed to see:
Yourself.
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X. CONCLUSION: DARE TO BE USELESS
Being useless doesn’t mean being lazy.
It means not letting your worth be determined by what others extract from you.
It means:
Saying no to roles that kill you.
Walking away from systems that drain you.
Sitting in your body — not to perform, but to just exist.
In this world, useful people die exhausted and unloved.
But useless people — the truly useless —
die free.
They are the ones who lived by being, not doing.
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