This article is classified "Fictional"
Delayed usefulness is defined as finding that one needs something at almost the moment it has been disposed of, often after years of having saved it because of some perceived usefulness. This is an exceedingly common phenomenon, baffling to the point of supernatural weirdness. Our research group (The Shiji/Wuwei Karl A. Shlemihl Vajrapani Collective) has conducted intensive fieldwork on the subject over the last 50-odd years in extensive areas in the developed industrialized world. Our research was limited to the industrialized First World society due to a lack of funding and our preliminary assumption that the concept of "delayed usefulness" is essentially related to exploitative consumerist capitalist waste-lot-want-more thinking. We have since accumulated sufficient evidence to suppose a certain universality, on Earth as well as in the rest of the hitchhiked universe. We will hereby present some of our findings and attempt a typology of this misunderstood subject. 1. "Inherent Usefulness" ------------------------ Things which are later found to have been useful must primarily be objects. Such objects can be physical, abstract, and in very few cases, both. Secondly, these objects must exist. In colloquial usage, this state will be described as "found," "bought," "borrowed but never returned," "it's always been here," "stolen," etc. The fact of the matter is, the objects must exist in a given consciousness (hereafter: "self"). Constant and actual perception is not a prerequisite: existence in this context differs subtly from phenomenological existence. We have found that the existence of objects was related to the inception of the state of being disposed of. This is the moment when objects are no longer perceived, are lost, are incompletely remembered after having been forgotten, are destroyed, or are otherwise actively disposed of. The self's motivation to allow an object to exist is described as a "use" that the said object is believed to have in some undefined future. Objects are therefore always useful: perceived usefulness is an inherent part of the identity of an object to the self. However, as objects are also never used, this inherent usefulness is unreal. Usefulness is thus a function of perception. 2. "Relative Usefulness" ------------------------ ... and if they hadn't junked the tapes, I could have finished this @#$%&!**! article.