Boredom
Boredom lives inside spare time. The phrase “spare time” itself suggests time set aside for boredom. They are bedfellows. In theory, time with no set purpose is precisely the best time not to be bored, since one has absolute freedom over how to spend it. But, it never works that way. Boredom will fill every crevice, like water. The best vaccine against boredom is to be busy, to constrain time in a rigid way so as to not allow boredom the vessel in which to inject itself. This vaccine carries the stipulation that one has to remember to take this “medicine” every day, which is hardly easy.
Boredom should not exist in a world of infinite choices. Given the means to choose, one can cure boredom by choosing something unknown, and given easy access to the means to choose, one is theoretically never more than five minutes away from a boredom cure. Yet it not only exists: it permeates. We are bored so often that we scarcely know another way to exist, and it seems almost as though we enjoy our boredom. Nobody would ever choose boredom, but wherever you look, there it is.
Boredom begins with a foot brushing against a loose flap of cardboard under the desk, or with a phone call, or by opening the fridge, closing it, and opening it again to get the pickles. Any gust of air. A phone call or an email, or a loud noise from a neighbour. Anything abrupt, shaking you loose from your moorings, sending you drifting into the sea of ennui. With persistence and a little luck, a mad scramble back to the shore is possible. It is easier, though, to drift.
Boredom is not laziness, because laziness is pursued, chosen, and even reveled in. Laziness can and should be active. There is a sublime purpose to laziness, and it can be treated as a high pleasure, even an art. It may seem that conscious intent or even consciousness is antithetical to laziness, but one must not mistake laziness for boredom. The purpose of laziness is to feel good, while to be bored is to cling desperately to life. One typically chooses laziness after a prolonged period of a draining activity. When exams are over, one makes the executive decision to veg out, sometimes even making a show of it. After a busy week at the office we take to parks, beaches, and thick sofas, to pursue the craft of laziness. Boredom is not expressly chosen. It is channel surfing, or letting some yappy mouth have your ear for an hour, or thumbing through a magazine looking at the pictures waiting for one of them to leap out of the page, bringing you out of your haze for an instant. Boredom need not be idleness, but it must always be passive (one can “laze”, but one cannot “bore” unless the object of the verb is someone else). Done properly, laziness is the worship of the principle of minimal exertion. If boredom is a desperate search for stimuli, then laziness is a (perhaps romanticized) respect and fondness for the stimuli one already has.
Boredom is a depreciating contentment with the known. Creation can never be boring. It is impossible. The unknown is the uncreated, and the unknown is never boring. Not all contrivances are “creative”. Perpetually creating the known does not cure boredom, though it may serve other purposes. It could even mutate into a form of laziness, like comfort food.
Boredom is a habit. Depression is merely practiced boredom. It is a skill, arrived at with serious engrossment, and stored chemically in the brain along neural pathways, as you might store recipes or the directions to the office. The ways depression is introduced to the brain vary greatly, but all forms of persistent depression involve cognitive reinforcement. The skilled practitioner rehearses daily with allegations at himself, weaving a narrative of futility inside which he can bind his life. Depression strengthens through repetition, entirely of one’s own doing; it is the depressive’s imposed duty to not only enslave himself but deepen his enslavement. That is not to say the depressive is at fault for setting off this chain of events. One often learns undesirable skills without trying, and some are deemed neuroses. There are some things about which it is possible to know too much.
The depressive can hone his craft night and day, whenever the muse strikes. Unchecked, he will learn to place his fundamental energies there. Any stimulus can be passed through the muddy lens of defeat, and this becomes second nature. Just as the computer programmer effortlessly lays his fingers on the keyboard in perfect home-row position, so too does the depressive slide effortlessly into melancholy, his practiced trade. He is, after all, on his way to becoming an expert.
Before long the he sits in a thicket of his own skilful making, and lives within reach of his primary expertise. To him, boredom suffices. It is comfortable. The depressive says “this is good enough for me”, and may even refuse to abide society’s pressures to drink deeply of life, to be carrying on like those people who go to the gym daily, or write novels to show off, or act out roles of meaningless ambition. He likens his condition to a worn armchair under a favourite lamp, and he lives from a sitting position. Staring at a tree in his front yard, or the lit apartment across the street, he says “there is more than this, but reaching it would involve getting up.” Eventually he discovers he can’t.
When life obligates him not to be bored but alert and responsible, his boredom may gnaw at him, haunt him, and grow slowly over his world like an invasive species. Left to grow, depression is a weed that permeates the cortex and melts over the eyes. Lights seem dimmer, and a stultifying grayness permeates everything. The cure involves the breaking of habits. Expertise cannot be purged from the brain; one must simply choose to learn new ways and hope to forget about the old ones. To the man sitting in the armchair covered in constricting vines, summoning the energy to shake off his bonds is easier said than done. He decides to try one day, and each vine is hacked back slowly. Casting off a few small branches gives him the confidence to try bigger ones. He may not get them all. Nobody ever does. But he can move his elbow now, and start stripping the leaves off. With every crack and snap, the plant dies. He gets an arm through, and then a leg, and before long he sees a light peeking through the vines, not from his favourite lamp, but from the moon outside.
Posted to:
(37 comments)
Failing that, there is always the worlds friend Prozac
Boredom – an infliction forced upon all us middle-rung urbanite types at one time or another. The insular stability (or ‘splendid stagnation’) of our situation is oddly our downfall. A life devoid of hardship and adversity is a drab one. It is this absolute lack of edge that continuously taunts me to cast away the habitual comfort of the urban existence in favour of a return to simpler – and gloriously more volatile – rural endeavours.
Dick – you must be mad. Come to a very rural 3rd world country like here in Jamaica and see the people literally stare at the road all day – this is what you do when you don’t have enough money for a television.
I plan on keeping my endeavours wholly first world; fortunately Rural Canada has television. However, for those of us engaged in the agrarian arts, there is generally little time for such frivolity.
Thought-provoking post. We are designed to struggle
for (reasonably easy to accomplish) aims. I for one am miserable if life is too easy! I need things to stand in my way, so that I may pit my wits against it. I’ve noticed that the most priveleged people are invariably the ones to suffer most from existential ennui, and by extension depression.
And you’re bang on about creativity. Boredom is just stifled, or misplaced, creative urge.
Buy:Cialis.Soma.Viagra.Tramadol.Cialis Super Active+.Zithromax.Maxaman.Cialis Professional.Levitra.Viagra Super Active+.Propecia.Viagra Professional.Cialis Soft Tabs.Super Active ED Pack.Viagra Soft Tabs.VPXL.Viagra Super Force….
BBQ http://btopfvppw.ANTIQUEFURNINISHING.INFO/tag/grill+BBQ+Grill/ : BBQ…
BBQ…
lightning http://45r.7zf.ly1.co : soil…
put…
buy pure acai berry…
Buyno prescription…
Cozaar@official.site” rel=”nofollow”>..…
Buynow it…
< a href="http://my.gardenguides.com/members/buy-Tramadol? buy@tramadol.best.price.online…
Buyit now…
is@sun.pharmaceuticals.depakote.good.quality” rel=”nofollow”>.…
Buyno prescription…
side@effects.of.zyrtec.overdose” rel=”nofollow”>.…
Buygeneric meds…
Voltaren…
Buygeneric drugs…
Yaz…
Buywithout prescription…
Yaz…
Buywithout prescription…
leg swelling lasix…
Buyno prescription…
yaz plan b…
Buydrugs without prescription…
Symbicort@Symbicort.Symbicort” rel=”nofollow”>……
Buynow it…
Purim@Purim.Purim” rel=”nofollow”>..…
Buywithout prescription…
Clonidine@Clonidine.Clonidine” rel=”nofollow”>……
Buyit now…
Prozac@Prozac.Prozac” rel=”nofollow”>……
Buyno prescription…
……
Buygeneric meds…
……
Buygeneric drugs…
when@will.i.ovulate.after.using.clomid” rel=”nofollow”>.…
Buyno prescription…
.…
Buyit now…
..…
Buyit now…
is@dexamethasone.steroid” rel=”nofollow”>..…
Buyit now…
aloe@vera.juice” rel=”nofollow”>..…
Buynow it…
maximum@dosage.for.pristiq” rel=”nofollow”>……
Buyit now…
cymbalta@and.elavil.interaction” rel=”nofollow”>.…
Buygeneric pills…
prilosec@and.pepcid.and.carafate.for.dog” rel=”nofollow”>.…
Buywithout prescription…
weitz@and.luxenberg.accutane.settlement” rel=”nofollow”>..…
Buyit now…
aciphex@how.fast.does.it.work” rel=”nofollow”>.…
Buyit now…
very helpful…
I preferred to thank you for this good article. http://vegascrush.com/getacrush/member/blog_post_view.php?postId=4000 I by all odds liked every little bit of it…
Great…
love your blog, http://blogpro.eu/heidiad/ ,Thanks again….
very helpful…
I preferred to thank you for this good article. http://cms.lychtb.webnode.cn/%E5%8D%9A%E5%AE%A2/ I by all odds liked every little bit of it…