{"id":767,"date":"2016-03-22T18:16:02","date_gmt":"2016-03-22T18:16:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/new-wp\/?p=767"},"modified":"2016-03-22T18:16:57","modified_gmt":"2016-03-22T18:16:57","slug":"boredom-as-educator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/?p=767","title":{"rendered":"Boredom as educator"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Yao<\/a>
Yao Xin of Knoxville<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

Boredom is interesting.<\/p>\n

Paradoxically: it has something to teach you, if you\u2019ll pay attention. Boredom can only arise when things are going extraordinarily well: your rent is paid, you\u2019ve got food in your belly, you got a good night\u2019s sleep, no one is hassling you\u2014in other words: all your needs, for the moment, have been met. What are you left with?<\/p>\n

Not bliss. Boredom.<\/i> Boredom is a very subtle and helpful educator. What does it have to teach us? That no matter what we think we want, once we have it, we\u2019ll soon grow tired of it, looking for the next \u201cimportant\u201d thing. Schopenhauer once said (somewhere or other: either in World as Will<\/i> or Parerga<\/i>) that human life oscillates between two extremes: suffering and boredom. The former characterizes the lives of the working class, the latter the bourgeoisie. When you aren\u2019t in pain, you ask what\u2019s the point.<\/p>\n

Now wait a minute. You\u2019re already objecting. You\u2019ve been happy, you\u2019ll say: exceptionally so. And so have I: for a minute or two, or a few hours, or even the better stretch of a day. Then what?\u2014Boredom or suffering. Survey your life; see if I\u2019m wrong. Nothing would make me happier than to be wrong. It\u2019s an illusion I\u2019d happily be divested of, were it an illusion.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not. We\u2019re sort of apt to fall for lies we tell ourselves. We trust ourselves; naturally enough: we have our best interests in mind. And it\u2019s not that we\u2019re stupid, necessarily; we just have a tendency to want to believe our wilder fantasies if they have a tendency toward our future pleasure: the wilder the pleasure, the wilder the fantasy can be\u2014and still somehow psychologically plausible.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s no need to belabor the point. I\u2019ve made it. But I wouldn\u2019t have wasted your time if I didn\u2019t think there was some use to be made of such \u201cmorbid\u201d thinking. There is a use.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re going to go on exactly as you always have; you\u2019ll continue on until you die: you\u2019ll like pleasant, happy situations; you\u2019ll enjoy tasty foods, comfortable evenings with loved ones; a whole host of things you\u2019ve constantly fantasized about and will continue to do so.<\/p>\n

The lesson that can be drawn from an analysis of boredom is a stoical one: when next you find yourself frustrated in your failed efforts; when you\u2019ve come up short; when you\u2019ve failed: remind yourself that infallibly\u2014insofar as induction is \u201cinfallible\u201d (see David Hume)\u2014whatever it is, whatever it was: you would have become bored with it. The newest technologies are outdated before they\u2019ve managed to accumulate a modicum of dust. Exciting careers turn into commonplace drudgeries, deadlines, and traffic jams. Beautiful lovers become middle-aged nags who ask passive-aggressive questions the rhetorical function of which is to demean you. Someone will key your car. Or you\u2019ll decide yellow was a bad decision, anyway.<\/p>\n

<\/a> I find that when I think along these lines, I\u2019m left with a sense of tranquility: which, of the various species of \u201chappiness\u201d on Earth<\/i>\u2014from the pleasant languor of lounging on a chair in the evening, drinking tea during twilight; to leg-cramping orgasms; to the sweet, sweet consolations of revenge on hated enemies\u2014is the most stable.<\/i> It\u2019s yours for the longest stretches of time, is the most<\/i> (I don\u2019t say absolutely) unshakeable, and it tends not to come with its attendant hassles. At some point twilight becomes night, the mosquitos begin to bite, and the upstairs neighbor begins vacuuming: there goes your pleasant, languorous tea drinking. The orgasm could lead to genital warts. And the yellow car will eventually get bird shit on it. You get the idea. But peace and quiet is peace and quiet. And not<\/i> chasing after things in your mind is a great way to attain it. Or, if you find yourself chasing them, remind yourself of their attendant hassles and dissatisfactions: you surely by now have a whole litany of items, accomplishments, and relationships that you previously thought would \u201ccomplete\u201d you. Did they?<\/p>\n

Or do they bore you now?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Boredom has something to teach you — if you’ll pay attention. In “Boredom as Educator” Yao Xin of Knoxville share a few thoughts about this old friend of ours.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":768,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","_wpcom_ai_launchpad_first_post":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10],"tags":[18],"class_list":["post-767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english","tag-essays"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/phd6fo-cn","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/Portrait_of_Dr._Gachet.jpg","post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=767"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":770,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/767\/revisions\/770"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/768"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/zatma.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}