I've spent a lot of time and brain cycles over the last decade writing software, entire products actually, that now sit as motionless bits on a disk somewhere,

I've spent a lot of time and brain cycles over the last decade writing software, entire products actually, that now sit as motionless bits on a disk somewhere, unused and useless. In the process of creating them I had a lot of fun, honed my existing skills and picked up new ones, broke out of various boxes I had been stuffed into in terms of how to architect systems, and just generally worked out my creative muscles. I've also written a lot of software that is useful and used, and in a practical sense makes (lots of) money. It's meaningless to break out the time and cycles spent on one Vs the other. The necessary skills required were enabled by one another. Moreover it would have been to a large extent impossible to determine a priori which would be which. Am I an impractical person because I've spent time and cycles on the former?