I confess - this past week I came dangerously close to being bored. A terrible sin in my book. In my defense, I will plead extenuating circumstances as I was stuck in a Romanian beach resort that didn’t quite catch up with the 21st century. Nothing to do at night, especially if your companion is a teenager looking forward to never spending another such trip with mommy. We did enjoy the concert we went there for, but by the last day of our stay we became concerned with suicide prevention, for the locals condemned to spend their lives there. We owe our survival to the kind people at a beach bar that offered us cool lemonade, a bit of shade and a great view.
The concept of boredom is of particular interest to me as I know various people suffering from this condition. In my natural habitat, left to my own devices I am never bored. I don’t find myself wondering what to do until bedtime, nor do I engage in activities simply to “kill time”.
I wish I could say I pity people who complain of being bored, but frankly I don’t understand them. With the household chores we all have to deal with, there’s precious little time to spend on pleasurable activities. That is if you’re able to find pleasure in life.
We are born with a natural inclination to find enjoyment even in the simplest of things. A child will find pleasure in banging a pot on the table or playing with a ragged one-eyed doll if there’s no one to entertain them. A trip to the store is an adventure for them and the world is full of wonders.
When do we lose our capacity to find enjoyment in life? Is it in school when you’re told every day that you must pay attention to mind-numbing stuff and not day-dream? Is it when you leave school and you’re told you need to work hard, make lots of money and forget about doing stuff that actually makes you happy? They’ll tell you there will be time enough for pleasurable activities once you’ve paid the mortgage and the kids have fled the coop. Only by that time nothing interests you anymore.
People afflicted with boredom are no fun to be around. Since they have nothing to do they often resort to inventing problems. Usually health problems that warrant your pity or things that need fixing with a lot of money and effort. The worst kind of bored people are those who assume you’re just like them and have nothing better to do with your life so they try to drag into their imaginary problems.
Do you have such people in your life? How do you deal with them?
How many times is one required to say “Oh, I’m so sorry to hear that” when you thought that particular problem got solved months ago? You might come across as rude if you start ignoring bored people, but you have your mental health to consider. Their negative attitude to life is contagious and before you know it you might find yourself seeing problems everywhere.
On the other hand, such people are useful as a reminder that you might become one of them if you lose your capacity to enjoy life!
P.S. - The reason I haven’t been very active lately is that my main focus used to be politics. I can’t write about politics and world events anymore as I don’t understand what’s going on. Also, of the terrible crimes going on I’d have very nasty things to say so I prefer not to.
Images are my own.