Since my journey in life has led me down a path where I find myself frolicking in a field of demolished assumptions, be they old ones of mine or the pummeled and shriveled assumptions once held by others, I'll go ahead and continue leaving a trail of abandoned bad thought patterns in my wake. {sips coffee}
Let me start with addressing what I am not saying, as I think it is a worthy preface to the points I want to make here.
I am NOT about to tell anyone that feeling entertained, or that entertainment--or the industry thereof--is somehow a bad thing. That is not at all what this is about. I love entertainment, and entertainment can come in many forms, be it intellectual, spiritual, emotional, physical, etc.
What I am addressing here is the different forms in which an unhealthy and irrational thought pattern reveals itself among some individuals.
For this piece I want to look at just one of the forms that the illogical assumption comes in, then I will address the underlying assumption that all forms point to at the end of this article and in the conclusion of Part 2 as well.
Let's look at when someone says that another person bores them, as a matter of complaint, such as:
"You bore me",
"you're boring",
"you're not interesting", etc.
What most people THINK they mean when they say that:
"You ought to have done something differently, to be effectively entertaining to me," or "you did something wrong/incorrect which goes against my personal preferences for what entertainment entails".
What most people really mean, SUBconsciously:
"What you presented doesn't align with my own pre-determined preferences, and it should have, because it's your job to somehow know what will entertain me AND appeal to that, but you failed, and that's your fault."
"My own feelings didn't enjoy that, my own feelings are not under my own control and I blame you for my lack of enjoyment, since I it's up to you to make me feel/experience something good and satisfying."
The complainer in question did not find anything they valued in that person/thing--emotionally, mentally, physically, or otherwise.
Remember here that this scenario could apply to entertainment in any form. It could be someone declaring a youtube video about history is boring, or an author's writing is boring, or someone dancing on a stage is boring, or a conversation being had is boring. For purposes of this article, what matters here is addressing the assumption that often underlies a complaint about others.
Necessarily, that is a result of the inner construct and layout of the person whining that they are bored.
Since value is subjective, not everyone will find value where this person does, and still many others will find value where this person did not. No person or thing outside them can understand fully the inner workings of that person and what will or will not entertain them or bring them value. At best, humans can guess from observing other humans what SOME humans might (as a general rule) find useful, interesting, valuable, or entertaining.
No SINGLE individual can know ahead of time for certain that any other individual, who they've not previously known or interacted with, will or will not find value in something they did, said, or in the media they produced.
As a human with basic human needs, I can at best guess that most humans will at some point find certain things valuable any given day: food, clothing, shelter, compensation for goods or services, things surrounding basic survival.
But at any single moment in time, having not interacted with another individual before in any form, it is not up to me to control him and MAKE HIM find value in what I am doing or saying.
Effectively, the person who declares "I'm bored by you!" is really saying "I find nothing of value here!" which is a declaration about who THEY are and has nothing whatsoever to say about the person or thing they did not see value in.
It does not objectively say:
"That thing has NO value! IT is boring!" The person whining cannot only NOT know that, he cannot control whether it will or won't be so for other humans. No one can declare something else is or is not boring, or lacking value, they can only reveal that the construct of their own mind and emotions sees no value in that thing.
To complain that someone else did not give you any value you expected to get, is to essentially say:
"I had an expectation, you didn't meet it, and you should have!"
To which, the logical response is:
Did I have an obligation to meet your expectations?
Did I promise I would?
Where did you get the assumption that other people's lives ought to be focused on what YOUR entertainment preferences are and on trying to meet them?
When I put myself/my work out into the world, did I--by doing so--promise that every individual would find it entertaining and valuable?
Did I claim I was objectively worthy enough to entertain you in some fashion?
The complainer has complained, and in reality has whined about HIMSELF, and and who HE (or she) is, and has said absolutely zero about what was presented to him, by simply crying "Boring!"
Someone who understands and is aware that it is up them to find value in something or to not, will look for value in something and when they don't find it they will either:
- move on to something with value
OR
- they will actually communicate to the other person, in some form, specific ways that "entertainer" could provide value to the person who initially found none, or provide future value to others, in ways that "entertainer" perhaps may have overlooked or not considered yet
What I hope is taken away from this, and what I learned for myself over time as I matured:
People who take ownership of who they are and how their own minds and preferences function, understand it is entirely on them to entertain themselves in whatever fashion, not up to anyone else to do so.
Nothing and no one can MAKE you bored, or FORCE YOU to NOT find value in a thing or person.
It is always, and has always been, up to you.
{Thanks for reading, everyone! Follow me for Part 2: "That's Not New Or Original!"}