Striving is considered useless, because there is no accepted definition of what is desirable.
Mr Lal is teaching this skill, which he considers "useless", to none of his children.
For those considered "useless", this means an uncertain future as they are sold from one owner to the next.
So he bought thousands of acres of land in Dearborn, filling in what were considered useless marshes where necessary.
More importantly, it provides a huge amount of what would generally be considered "useless" space - space that most creative industry workplaces are screaming out for.
These flowing, interlocking spaces around extremely cheap, publicly owned housing, are often the specific targets for development, considered "useless" by investors, if not by residents.
He writes that: "new ideologies, characterised by rampant individualism, egocentrism and materialistic consumption, weaken social bonds, fuelling that 'throw away' mentality which leads to contempt for...the weakest and those considered useless".
The artist, who lives in Cleveland, describes her approach as a critique of society's hierarchy of values, a commentary on what (or who) is considered useless, alien and marginal.
Omer said he witnessed public beheadings and revealed that unqualified recruits who cannot speak Arabic — including Britons — were assigned to suicide squads because "they are considered useless for any other terror tasks".
