What is boredom? Really? I don’t mean the technical definition of boredom, but the feeling itself. Is it our subconscious minds holding up the biological clock in reproach and telling us that we’ve only got so long here, so we’d better go find something useful to do? Perhaps it’s a way for us to deal with the irrepressible passage of time and change. Or perhaps the alien puppet-masters that have us on live TV are giving us a prod because we aren’t being very entertaining.
Okay, so maybe that last one isn’t very feasible. I don’t suppose it really matters in the end, as long as we find ways to curb the lethargy. So how do we do it? And, possibly more interestingly, how have we done it in the past?
These days, when we get stuck into a boredom slump, most people will turn to the indulgent comforts of our society. We might watch a film, switch on the TV, read a magazine, listen to the radio, or some hectic combination of them all. And just to make sure the brain hasn’t got a chance to be creative or think at all, we properly drown it out with alcohol. That generally fixes the problem of boredom.
But is it a solution? Aren’t we just postponing things? What happens when TV becomes boring too? Then we’re in trouble. What did people do before we had cathode ray tubes, transistors, radio, or the printing press?
Many ancient civilisations, including the Egyptians, Chinese and Mayans, spent their time looking at the Earth and the stars in their spare time, creating mathematics, chemistry, even whole mythologies. And over the course of centuries, even millennia, they discovered many astounding things about the universe and our place in it. Each of these races knew the Earth was round, for instance. The Chinese discovered gunpowder, after hundreds of years of chemical experimentation. The Mayans not only knew the Earth travelled around the Sun, but they knew how long it took, in seconds (or the equivalent thereof obviously), to the third decimal place. Our current technology can barely do better than that. The Egyptians built pyramids that took 20 years to construct, were 150 metres high, and were so precise the dimensions of the base sides were only 5 centimetres off. Could anybody today even begin to imagine the sheer willpower each of these accomplishments would take? And why did they do it?
We look at it now, and we attribute these amazing feats to a societal will, or religious fanaticism. But ultimately, even these cultural forces came about as a way of describing and understanding the nature of what these people encountered while trying to occupy their minds.
People will try to tell you that there are no original ideas anymore, and that everything is just a derivation of something else. This is a sadly naive and morbidly dystopian view of the capacity of our creativity. This idea is only ever weakly refuted, but I think everyone has been duped. Put down the magazine, get out of the house, and just look at the stars once in a while. Who knows? Maybe your boredom will instigate the next age of enlightenment.
Is boredom, dullness, or being in the doldrums, maybe even weariness, all of these would describe boredom. I certainly don’t think it has anything to do with our biological clock. It is something we create ourselves and certainly aliens are out of the question, .it is something that we each create because we are too lazy to get of our rear end and do something constructive with our time.
So I gather that you’re asking how do we try and defeat boredom in our lives, and of course how have we done this previously when we have been bored.I have found that most people that get bored in today’s modern society only turn to the modern comforts, such as TV, movies and games, because they are too lazy to try and do something constructive with their spare time.
I must say that you are right when you say that those that can’t think for themselves and do something creative turn to alcohol or drugs to numb the boredom. It certainly does fix the problem, but at the same time it also creates more problems. Is it the solution? No it isn’t, alcohol and drugs are never the solution for anything.
What did we do before TV? Let me think now! We went out and played with our mates and friends, we blew up letterboxes on cracker night with big bungers, we used to ride our bikes everywhere, we didn’t worry about terrorism, we didn’t worry about hurting ourselves when we fell over, oh, and we used to lay down in the backyard and look at the stars and wonder how they got there.
We didn’t know about the ancient civilizations, that part of history hadn’t been written then, also it didn’t worry us, and we were kids and wanted to have a good time. We wanted to live our lives as best we could, and we did that, if we did something wrong we would get a hiding for it and wouldn’t do it again. We didn’t know about the Mayans and what they knew, we were kids, and I think the adults didn’t know either. We were more engrossed with buying musk sticks that were a foot long for 1 cent each.
We hadn’t heard of the pyramids, and as for religion, we all went to church on Sunday and went to Sunday school, no questions were asked, it was expected and as kids we did as we were asked. Thoughts and practices only started to change after the 70’s, religious fanaticism only came into reality after this when people started to voice their opinion on their beliefs. This came about because some people started to become lazy and think that society owed them a living, and not that they had to work for a living to get the things that they wanted.
Finally, you say that,” This is a sadly naive and morbidly dystopian view of the capacity of our creativity.” I think that a little harsh on today’s society, they do mean well, even if they look as though they mean otherwise. It would be good to see some of the younger people get out and look at the stars, not worry about getting hurt if they fall over, and look at life on the lighter side a bit more often. But they have to stop taking drugs and drinking alcohol for this to happen.
Bazza
Pretty cool post. I just came across your blog and wanted to say
that I’ve really liked browsing your blog posts. Any way
I’ll be subscribing to your feed and I hope you write again soon!
Thanks for the reply Bazza – it’s interesting to look at the subject from a different context. I would have loved to have written a 2000 word piece on the subject – there’s a lot I wanted to say. I guess I jumped around a bit, but the point I wanted to make is that in our down-time we spend too much time reaffirming other people’s ideas and creations than coming up with our own, which may lead to a stagnation of creativity.
And thanks, Jenna! Nice to know you decided to stick around. It may not look like it, but we’ve got a system for posting, so there should always be more stuff to read.