Flogging A Dead Peeve

Has anyone ever done anything of note while trying to be relevant?

Can you imagine the great inventors or discoverers in this world toiling in the lab, or dealing with extreme environments while actually thinking about being relevant?

Relevance is bureaucrat speech. We do what we do because we think we will acheive a certain goal, but sometimes, when the goal is less concrete, people like to make themselves feel better by arguing whatever action taken is relevant so that they can them make their role in the situation more important. Trying to be relevant, therefore is largely an arrogant behavior, an attempt to inflate one's own importance; which is exactly what bureaucrats have to do in order to defend their existing funding and secure more.