Boredom

As a child, I always thought that boredom was a sign of immaturity and that adults, having wider attention spans, enjoyed “boring things” (e.g. Shakespeare, classical music) more than children. I do agree that a person’s attention span increases over time. However, does the inclination to boredom decrease? Not necessarily. In fact, the more experience one gains, the likelier one will suffer from chronic boredom. The amount of boredom in one’s life usually depends on how exciting one’s life is. The people who lead lives of routine (like The Kinks’ “Well-Respected Man”) are probably more bored than the people whose lives are less predictable, never certain where they are going to be the next day or who they are going to meet. Note that I’m not saying that an unpredictable life entails happiness. It could just as well be the life of a soldier in combat who is surrounded by death.

Just as much as a life of chaos and horror can be disheartening, so can a world of little variety, where one wakes up in the morning with obligations to perform tasks that reap no intrinsic reward. Life, in that sense, is nothing more than survival. For human beings, it is not sufficient to just survive, to have food, water and shelter. Several of us become depressed when we start questioning our own value: In me being alive, what is that doing for the rest of the world? What contribution am I really making? Most people try to answer such questions by way of parenthood, meditation/prayer, therapy or various altruistic acts. While it is true that one can have a positive impact on the world, the motivation to be virtuous isn’t simply based on a moral conscience. It is also rooted in a self-interest, something as minute as a primal need for temporary distraction. Adults, especially those with extrovert personalities, can malfunction if their life becomes deprived of stimulating experiences. The likelihood that they’ll become depressed out of boredom, moreover, only grows with age/experience.

Because children have such a smaller spectrum of experience, they are interested in several things that would be very mundane and ordinary for several adults. The obvious example is nature. For a child, playing in the backyard isn’t simply performing a leisurely outdoor activity. Playing outdoors entails an exploration of a new world. Trees, grass and insects are sources of entertainment. The adults who’ve decided that science is uninteresting, an error in judgment I’ve made myself, will not regard their own backyards with the same level of fascination. Just imagine how the average American house owner deals with nature, chopping down trees and spraying away insects.

In no way, however, do I mean to criticize adults and say that children are somehow more “enlightened” because of their innocence. It is not a bad thing that adults are generally more complicated than children, to the degree that adults have such “busy” schedules that they can’t even stop to admire a rainbow. Staying focused on what is perceived to be higher priorities is integral to being a responsible person. A parent who forgets to pick up a child from school, instead stopping at a park to lie down on the grass and gaze at the beautiful blue sky, is mentally disturbed. An ability to appreciate the “finer things in life” does not cancel out one’s moral responsibilities. A mere “child,” in other words, is arguably an unfit parent, a role that involves a certain level of maturity.

There are the adults, like me, however, who have very few obligations and consequently plenty of time to have fun. Unfortunately, many of us have chosen to not explore the world around us. We’ve subscribed to the lie that Dorothy preaches at the end of The Wizard of Oz: “[…] if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard. Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with! Is that right?” I always interpreted that line as, “Be happy with what you have. You have everything you need in your own home.” Of course, Dorothy would’ve never reached such an insight if she hadn’t had her incredible experience in Oz first. She is happy because she has her comforts back—her home and family and friends. The real lesson of the film, which is not Dorothy’s own flawed conclusion, is that one has to abstain from familiar comforts to truly appreciate them. Naturally, Dorothy will become bored again and dissatisfied with her life in Kansas. She will discover that she does not have everything she needs. The right solution is having further adventures in exotic places, from which she apparently derives some enjoyment.

The wrong solution, which is what I have chosen, would be to stay home, to tell myself that I’m a fool for ever wanting to leave. If I can’t find it here, I probably can’t find it anywhere else. However, I’ve learned that I’m, in fact, a fool for not considering the danger of cabin fever or, even worse, the creation of a mental prison. Habits die hard, and the habit to lock one’s self up in one’s home can be as psychologically damaging as the worst addictions. Just as it sometimes appears that addicts could go cold turkey if they wanted to, it also seems to be that way for shut-ins. “Well, no one’s locked them in. They can leave at their own will.” The problem is, the shut-ins have lost the will to leave. They have told themselves that their self-inflicted confinement is for their own good. However, if this confinement consists of the same daily routine, the self-inflicted prisoner will inevitably grow bored. The prisoner may be in denial that they are in boredom, developing destructive habits without admitting that the sole cause is boredom.

A common catalyst for boredom is the moment when familiar comforts, which we may exploit for our own pleasure, lose their effect. For me particularly, it is food. I have fond memories of eating fast food and snack foods, and in the same way that addicts fail to re-experience that first “high,” I have failed to make myself happy with food. My household reinforced a belief that food has the power to improve one’s morale. “You won’t feel as bad if you eat something.” Like several people, I have also resorted to TV, movies, books, music and social media as escapes. With all of these outlets, I have made the mistake of assuming that they will take away my sorrow. Yes, they are temporary distractions from life’s disappointments. But they are just that. They cannot cure my unhappiness, neither can they eliminate my feelings of inadequacy as a person or boredom, which itself is rooted in a void that I don’t know will ever be filled. While this conclusion may be fairly obvious to many, I’ve been guilty of moronically hoping that food and entertainment will be enough for me to feel content.

I do think I know what happiness is, because I was fairly happy as a child. I don’t believe that my unhappiness is the result of any tragedy. My life is only tragic in its mediocrity and the little I’ve done to improve it. Moreover, the things that excited me as a child are now boring. At this point, I’m unsure as to where my happiness began and ended. Why was I happy as a child? Maybe it was because my standards for living were so stupidly simple. My desires were limited to what was readily available. I’d want something as basic as a hamburger, which my parents would buy for me if I asked them. What has made me somewhat of a disturbed person is the lie I have been feeding myself, on a very subconscious level, that I should only want what is readily available. I’ve believed that I shouldn’t desire anything that is out of reach, and to this day, several things that would make me happier are hard to come by.

Buddhism states (and I’m paraphrasing here) that desire is the root of all suffering. There may be some legitimacy to this claim, but I also believe that desire defines humanity. There is nothing wrong with desiring a lot of things. For many, desire is the foundation of the will to live. One cannot simply preserve a life without specific preferences for what that life would consist of. People are never happy on the grounds that they are surviving. I remember a neighbor, who was in eighties, once complaining, “Why does everything have to be fun?” In other words, why can’t people be grateful for being alive? Because a life limited to the activities of eating, drinking and sleeping is depressing. It’s okay to think that one’s life could always be more fun because, after all, it can be. The lengths that one is willing to go to for a more exciting life is another story.