So…I saw your tweet.
You’re “bored”?
WOW!
I am…absolutely floored. Hopelessly lost in admiration!
You are everything I aspire to be.
Oh. Hold on.
…..
Back. I had to go and check what “bored” meant, just in case the definition had changed in recently months, but no! It’s the same! In essence, you’re saying you have run out of things to do that are worthy of interest. Which is just an incredible place to be.
HOW YOU MUST HAVE LIVED.
I mean, by being bored, you must have…
- Eagerly delved into everything Stanford, Harvard and Yale are offering up on iTunes, entirely for free…
- …and then filled any gaps with Academic Earth and Khan Academy.
- Prepared every single foodstuff suggested by Cafe Ferdando, especially the Momofuku Milk Bar Cereal Milk Ice Cream…
- Backed up every single photo and critical document you own…
- …and then did it again, elsewhere, because you never know when the badsectorpocalypse will strike…
- …and even went as far as protecting all your precious bookmarks & settings on your favourite apps by going portable and sending a backup a copy to your USB or cloud drive?
- Read all The Morning News, then all of World Hum, then every scrap of archived material from Brain Pickings, rounding things off with the Paris Review. (Well done. You’ve read some of – and read about some of – the best writing on the Internet. Admirable way to spend a couple of decades. I applaud your dedication).
- Read Lord Of The Rings yet again, except following the route in Barbara Strachey’s Journeys Of Frodo (which can be previewed here because someone’s scanned them, but really, the book is a toe-wiggling joy – but you know that, having bought it, right?).
- …and followed it up with a substantial dollop of TED-watching.
- Grasped the fundamentals of the 6,000+ living languages of the world.
- Successfully learned to do all 50 of these things…
- …and then somehow, against staggering odds, managing to fight your way through all 50 of these.
- Mapped yourself silly with the help of the incredible Strange Maps, GeoCurrents and BIG Map Blog.
- Read Nieman Storyboard until you learned how stories work…
- …and then written at least as many fiction and non-fiction books as Isaac Asimov.
- Sat outside and listened to the world – the birds, the weather and the bustle of humanity, the creak of your chair, the sound of your own breathing – until everything held absolutely zero novelty or interest for you. Been there? Done that? WOW.
- Learned to recite and draw the RCA Animates from memory.
- Read, and more importantly thunk deeply about, all the Change This manifestos.
- Addressed every lingering guilty regret, until you were satisfied you’d done absolutely everything you could to make amends, no matter how belatedly.
- And finally (because it’s important to have a sense of proportion here) – you’ve followed every single link in every single issue of Zunguzungu‘s Sunday Reading series.
I mean, there’s other stuff – but let’s face it, doing these things really ate up your free time. You’re allowed a little slack!
And I don’t want to sound unreasonable, of course. Or bitchy.
Anyway, I’ll let you get back to being bored.
Because you, my friend, deserve it.
Image: Shermeee.
Touché.
It reminds me of Samuel Johnson’s “when a man’s tired of London, he’s tired of life”.
I should have added London to the list.
Which reminds me – Peter Ackroyd’s “London” is in my bookshelf, not getting read. Harrumph.
Of course this doesn’t allow for the fact that some people are bored, not because they’ve got nothing to do, but because they have too much dull stuff that they have to do. If I worked as a cleaner or a factory worker all day, I’d be pretty bored!
Bookmarking this post… not that I ever have time to be bored, but someday I aspire to it!
Does that mean you’re never calling by again? Well THANKS, lady.
Now I’m going to feel guilty everytime I say that, damn.
By the way, if you ever decide to travel to US, and venture to Colorado, you had better look me up – I would love to show you some of our amazing sites here in the wild, wild west
You bet.
I’d love to tool around Colorado. I’ve seen too much of it in the pages of National Geographic to be comfortable with the idea of skipping it when I finally visit the US…
Yes, because all those things that interest you also interest me. Completely.
In psychology, boredom is defined as an attention problem: “an unpleasant, transient affective state in which the individual feels a pervasive lack of interest in and difficulty concentrating on the current activity.”
It’s not about whether or not something is worthy of interest, it’s about changing moods and psychological states. An in the moment type of things. I love certain things, as we all do, but I don’t always feel like doing them.
Boredom is also defined as “to weary by dullness, tedious repetition, unwelcome attentions, etc”, which is not about having nothing to do, but about being stuck doing something that is uninteresting.
Pedantic –
Adjective.
1. Overly concerned with minute details or formalisms, especially in teaching.
Someone takes the time to write down a list of things to do and websites to visit, all of which could drastically improve their audiences’ lives, and you feel the need to niggle about a matter of syntax? Come on, now. The post wasn’t written to be an asshole to anyone who has ever sighed, “God, I’m bored.” It was written to give all of us a few more resources that we may not have had before if we’re ever in the position where we have free time and nothing better to do with it.
Your tone and use of definitions was horrifically rude and priggish, and your post contributed absolutely nothing of value to the conversation, besides. Go find somewhere else to be miserable, please. We’re trying to learn.
Yes, my “tone” was so much worse than your insults.
I personally felt the authors “tone” was sarcastic and pretentious. If you want to share things, that’s fine, but I interpreted as a put down to anyone who ever considered themselves bored without having done every possible awesome and amazing thing, like those things listed, including myself. One can make a list of awesome things to do without being sarcastic, or accept the fact that some people might be offended. (I’d also like to point out here that I’m not saying the author should avoid possibly offending others, which I regard as impossible anyway, just that it’s should be okay for people to feel offended and be allowed to express that.)
I used definitions as examples, because the author had mentioned looking up the definition of boredom already. I wasn’t exactly correcting or anything, just pointing alternative definitions to, you know, further learning in that specific direction.
Accepting others’ thoughts and opinions, as well as expressing them as I did and am entitled to, is another way of learning. Please don’t outright insult me just because you disagree with what I’m saying. I was attempting to add to the conversation, but thanks for ever so subtly shutting me out and putting me down.
I appreciate the time you’ve both taken in commenting. Thank you.
Absolutely there’s the other definition of boredom, and we all feel that, and I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t acknowledge it. In the specific case that triggered the post, it wasn’t that kind of boredom. It was the “the world is itself boring” kind of argument for being bored.
But really, like most posts of this kind (I can’t claim to be original here), it’s mainly aimed at myself. It’s a self-kick in the self-pants. Because sometimes I forget that I hardly know anything. So it’s really a subjective, navel-gazing rant at myself, turned into a list of things I admire so some of my readers might benefit from clicking through and having a look.
That said, I’d argue boredom is a symptom of something being wrong elsewhere. I don’t believe it’s a natural state of being. Being rested in your own mind, unstriving, drifting, that’s different to being “bored” in the most commonly-held sense. That’s my belief. But then, I’m not a psychologist, just a bloke with a blog…
THANK YOU! For writing this. Every time someone tells me they’re bored, I want to scream. I wish I had the time to be bored. To have run out of books to read, food to cook/bake/eat, photos to take, articles to write, blogs to catch up on, movies to see, friends to make, problems to solve. (etc.)
Just one tiny thing that is a pebble in my shoe.. thunk? (Grammar Geek.)
Oh, “thunk” is one of my favourite non-words. I live in hope that it’ll someday get formally adopted into the global lexicon, alongside other useful words like “squee” and “craptastic”. I know it’s wrong, but I can’t leave it alone. It’s a Puritanical thing. Saying “thunk” is my word equivalent of a visit to I Can Haz Cheezburger. I’m not proud of it, of course, but…there you go.
Great. Now I will never be bored again.
Well said, Mike. All great suggestions.
We all have stuff we need to do that may be less than engaging–but that doesn’t mean we can’t make ourselves better. Even when work is dull, or I’m washing the dishes or doing the laundry, podcasts and audiobooks keep me learning and help me get younger.
Whatever I’m doing, I try to focus on how to challenge myself. I don’t always succeed, but I always make that the goal.
Make it a great day!
Scott
Just sent this to my friend who complained of being bored
Absolutely love it, fantastic!
I’d think that “bored” in this context might stand for plain ignorant.