Tag Archives: boredom

Boredom, your window on undiluted time.

quotes, time, ,

“When hit by boredom, let yourself be crushed by it; submerge, hit bottom. In general, with things unpleasant, the rule is: The sooner you hit bottom, the faster you surface. The idea here is to exact a full look at the worst. The reason boredom deserves such scrutiny is that it represents pure, undiluted time in all its repetitive, redundant, monotonous splendor.

“Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one’s mental equilibrium. It is your window on time’s infinity. Once this window opens, don’t try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open.”

― Joseph Brodsky

It’s interesting how metaphorical the poet Brodsky gets in this passage on boredom — and his metaphors are so physical. Boredom hits us, and crushes us. We sink under water, we hit bottom. Then we surface fast, and even when encountering a window, we don’t just look through it but throw it open. Take the bull by the horns, I might add. Don’t miss the opportunity — go for it!

It may be that my interest in boredom has something to do with its connection to Time. When we are experiencing the restless kind of boredom, it’s often because we think whatever we are doing is a waste of time, or at least that there might be a better use of our time than what has been given to us, what we are stuck doing. But Brodsky doesn’t see time that way, as something to use. We are beings in time, and just letting the seconds and minutes go by as we contemplate that reality — something splendorous — can reveal aspects of our existence that we might miss, if we keep ourselves constantly busy.

Contemplation is mental and hopefully spiritual work. Not laziness, not sloth. Possibly the opposite of sloth, which is another word for acedia. I still hope to explore the idea of acedia, but that will probably not happen soon. In the meantime, I’m growing bored with thinking about boredom. Here’s one last thought to contemplate:

Boredom is the feeling that everything is a waste of time;
serenity, that nothing is.
–Thomas Szasz

Boredom, the rhythm and the minutiae.

grief, poetry, time, , , , , , ,

 

 

 

 

 

BORED

All those times I was bored
out of my mind. Holding the log
while he sawed it. Holding
the string while he measured, boards,
distances between things, or pounded
stakes into the ground for rows and rows
of lettuces and beets, which I then (bored)
weeded. Or sat in the back
of the car, or sat still in boats,
sat, sat, while at the prow, stern, wheel
he drove, steered, paddled. It
wasn’t even boredom, it was looking,
looking hard and up close at the small
details. Myopia. The worn gunwales,
the intricate twill of the seat
cover. The acid crumbs of loam, the granular
pink rock, its igneous veins, the sea-fans
of dry moss, the blackish and then the graying
bristles on the back of his neck.
Sometimes he would whistle, sometimes
I would. The boring rhythm of doing
things over and over, carrying
the wood, drying
the dishes. Such minutiae. It’s what
the animals spend most of their time at,
ferrying the sand, grain by grain, from their tunnels,
shuffling the leaves in their burrows. He pointed
such things out, and I would look
at the whorled texture of his square finger, earth under
the nail. Why do I remember it as sunnier
all the time then, although it more often
rained, and more birdsong?
I could hardly wait to get
the hell out of there to
anywhere else. Perhaps though
boredom is happier. It is for dogs or
groundhogs. Now I wouldn’t be bored.
Now I would know too much.
Now I would know.

-Margaret Atwood

Here we have a different perspective on boredom from what I posted yesterday…  and I love this poem. But I wondered about the line, “Now I would know too much.” Why would the narrator prefer less understanding — which is what I took as the meaning of knowing — ? In what way would it be too much? But then I mused on how well I relate to the feeling of regret, regret that there were any moments or hours in which I was not fully conscious, and thankful for my late husband. That of course would have been the perspective of a saint; if I had the chance to go back, I’m sure I would still not be one of those.

That made me think, maybe the line I didn’t get refers to the fact the narrator has come to realize, that “he” was not going to be around indefinitely, and that the loss of him would be incredibly painful. It’s the sort of intelligence that sinks deep into the soul, where the struggle to comprehend it continues indefinitely. Now, if she could go back, she would not be the same person, and the kind of knowledge she would take back to the past would be truly too much to bear in that “present.” It isn’t given to us humans to skip back and forth through time, which is a good thing, because just reading this poem demands more of my mind than is comfortable. Most of us can barely attend to the present, and excessive theorizing can be a sad waste of our hours.

That I should read the poem during the holiday season, when I’m already prone to missing my husband a LOT… well, it happened, and it’s okay. It prompted me to think of some specific moments and places, my own husband’s hands (easy for me to pay attention to), and habits, and “boring” things he would talk to me about. I even remember a time when I was sitting in a boat, trying really hard not to be bored.

Nowadays, I’m increasingly thankful for all the days that God gave me before, during and after the years I lived with him, though I can’t go back and be this thankful retroactively. And even if I was not always present in the moment, God was always present with me. That is a thought that wakes me up, again and again.

Mr Glad and His Sister

Boredom, the guide to mystery.

prayer, quotes, , , , ,

Eric Hyde is an Orthodox Christian psychotherapist writing at Eric Hyde’s Blog. I appreciated his brief musing, on the increase of his understanding of boredom from reading Heidegger; he combined it with his own experience and that of his clients, in this post: “Heidegger’s ‘Profound Boredom’: using boredom to cultivate the soul.”

Heidegger names three levels of boredom, the most extreme which is profound. To many people, the idea of profound boredom probably sounds frighteningly close to deep depression — a condition to be avoided at all costs. But I have heard more than one person say that they welcome boredom — even if it is said half-jokingly, as in, “I wish I had time to be bored!” But there are various ideas out there about what boredom is, and theories about what to do about it, if anything. I’d like to learn more about the difference between boredom and acedia. So this probably won’t be my last post on the subject.

Eric Hyde writes:

“If you’ve ever sat alone at the beach, or in the mountains, or the country, or sat gazing at the fully illumined night sky and had that deep sense of your own smallness, of your own seeming triviality in the broad scope of existence, and yet rather than crushing your soul it gave you a sense of calm wonder, a sense of spiritual ordering, then you’ve likely had the experience of profound boredom as Heidegger described it.

“In short, what I found so powerful in the notion of profound boredom is that boredom has the power to grant a person ‘attunement’ to oneself and to existence as a whole—or more properly speaking, attunement to Being as a whole—in a truly spiritual manner. Rather than causing torment, boredom, if used properly, can be at once a guide to peace and a guide to the very mystery of being.”

I’m familiar with this attitude, because it is commonly taught in the Orthodox Church; offhand I think of books on prayer by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom.

Hyde gives three tips:

1. Don’t wait for boredom to find you—search it out.
2. Once there, allow boredom to reveal its message.
3. Repeat daily.

This busy trifling and frivolous hurry.

quotes, time, women, , , ,

“I know that I am treading on tender ground; but I cannot help thinking that the restless pains we take to cram up every little vacuity of life, by crowding one new thing upon another, rather creates a thirst for novelty than knowledge; and is but a well-disguised contrivance to keep us in after-life more effectually from conversing with ourselves.

“The care taken to prevent ennui is but a creditable plan for promoting self-ignorance. We run from one occupation to another (I speak of those arts to which little intellect is applied) with a view to lighten the pressure of time; above all to save us from our own thoughts; whereas, were we thrown a little more on our own hands, we might at last be driven, by way of something to do, to try to get acquainted with our own hearts; and though our being less absorbed by this busy trifling and frivolous hurry, might render us somewhat more sensible of the taedium of life, might not this very sensation tend to quicken our pursuit of a better?”

— Hannah More, Strictures on the Modern System of Female Education, 1799