True, but my point was that it seems like usefulness can be created out of the think air, i.e. you don't discover it (or miss it) but instead you direct your ob

True, but my point was that it seems like usefulness can be created out of the think air, i.e. you don't discover it (or miss it) but instead you direct your obsession towards usefulness by adding complexity. I think maths is a great example of this, though some big part of it hasn't proved its usefulness yet.