the lessons of Gulliver's travels

I have been reading Gulliver's travels as of late. Today I was reading about the people of Laputa. These people had an academy in their capitol city where extensive research was done. Some of the projects were: trying to extract sun-beans out of cucumbers, trying to reduce human excrement to its original food, and softening marble for pillows and pin-cushions. It seems to me that the goals of these experiments could be achieved by much easier means or are not necessary at all. This lead to me thinking about my life whether or not I have wasted a lot of time on things that lead to nothing or don't add anything of value to my life. Maybe playing hours of guitar hero instead of learning to play the actual guitar would fit into this category. What do you do that leads to nothing productive?