What kind of arbitrary, stupid goals can you come up with?
Not just in the garden—but in life.
Is your garden an arbitrary, stupid goal?
The correct answer is: yes.
I’ve been looking for a new book to read over the holiday break. Something that could live up to my last favorite: Arbitrary Stupid Goal by Tamara Shopsin.
Arbitrary Stupid Goals
I picked it up after Austin Kleon mentioned it on his reading list and promised quirky autobiographical stories set in my dream neighborhood—Greenwich Village. Sold.
Early on, Shopsin describes a family vacation planned entirely around place names that included the word Wolf: Wolf Point, Wolfville, Wolf Lake, and so on. The logic was simple. Their last name was Wolfowitz.
It was a trip made up of third-rate attractions and non-destinations—and somehow, it was perfect.
That story instantly reminded me of a road trip my (now) husband and I took when we were first dating. We lived in Washington, D.C., were very much falling in love, and decided to take off for Labor Day weekend with no plan except one rule: navigate by the alphabet.
The “alphabet trip,” as we still call it, was a directionless, Wolfowitz-style holiday.
A was Annapolis, Maryland.
I can’t remember B.
C was Chestertown, Maryland, where we ate the best crab soup of our lives—served with a shot of sherry to pour over the top.
By J we were in Jersey City.
N—our final letter—was Newport, Rhode Island, where we arrived just as the town was being boarded up for Hurricane Edouard.
Completing the alphabet was our arbitrary, stupid goal. And reading the book, I realized something uncomfortable.
I don’t have enough of those anymore.
These days, the only place I reliably let arbitrary, stupid goals sneak in is my garden.
A few examples:
- Can I grow enough strawberries to get all my friends drunk at an epic, fresh-from-the-garden daiquiri barn party?
(Answer: yes. Yes, I can.) - Let’s grow every variety of horseradish we can find just to see which one is the hottest.
(This was one of my grandmother’s arbitrary, stupid garden goals.) - My friend Matt once grew a mind-boggling amount of sweet peas—not for yield, but to study them, photograph them, write about them, and then throw a beautiful party.
(Okay, maybe slightly less arbitrary if you’re a garden writer—but still.)
Then there are the giant pumpkin growers.
The people chasing the elusive blue daylily.
Or someone who just wants to make one truly good meal from something that didn’t come from a grocery store.
The best gardens are collections of arbitrary, stupid goals.
Sometimes it’s better to drive with no destination.
Maybe even chase a storm.
Create. Experiment. Tear it down. Start again.
Find more ways to be arbitrary and stupid—not just in the garden, but in life.
So tell me:
What wonderfully pointless thing have you been up to?
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Thank you for this post- I often find myself trying to justify (almost always to non-gardeners) the cost, space, and time we put into the garden… but I shouldn’t have to. I do it because I love it, because I can, and because getting our space to match the vision in my head is a perfectly wonderful arbitrary stupid goal. Love it. Happy Holidays!
I am not a great fan of roses, but I always thought it would be nice and inspiring to have a rose garden that only contained roses named after a specific person.
I love the idea – and wholeheartedly think you you should go for it!
Years ago I visited New Orleans with a friend who had inherited an astonishing amount of silver flatware. Of all the various specific pieces in the collection there was no marrow spoon. Marrow spoon? So we hunted up and down Magazine Street and beyond. We saw stores that could have been museums, and eventually we had a choice of marrow spoons. (Disclaimer: I don’t eat meat, much less bone marrow) We had so much fun, but until now, I did not know it to be an Arbitrary Stupid Goal. Indeed, that describes my garden, as well as OCD Challenge and Collector’s Money Pit, not to mention Pretend Designer’s Puzzle Board. Thanks for the read.
I love it!
Love this! Thank you for posting.