I recently saw a news report about hearing damage being cause by excessive iPod use. One of the people interviewed said something like, without the musical stimulation of their digital music box, life was flat and boring.
Quickly, I rushed to judgment.
“There is more sensory input available from walking down a country lane on a calm day than in all the music created since the beginning of time combined,” I thought. “Stupid teenagers,” I added for good measure before contemplating how great Brian Williams looks. Sigh.
Then I watched an evening of television or looked around on the internet for items of interest — socially redeeming and otherwise – played a computer game, read a book or generally did anything I could to escape from the reality of my life. Now I’m not the center of the world, but my life is pretty swell.
Still, I would rather spend an afternoon playing FreeCell or updating my Netflix Queue than actually being present where I am. Try to sit quietly doing nothing for an hour, I dare you. No eating or drinking, just sitting. It’s crushing somehow.
What is that? It’s like a vacuum. It’s as though I live on a grand stage on which I perform the most petty and menial of tasks. Life is like playing Chopsticks at Carnegie Hall.
Now, I’ve no patience with people who whine about being bored. Yet I’m not certain that filling my hours with The Sims isn’t just an active form of boredom. The world is so full of a number of things, I’m sure we shall all be as happy as kings, Robert Louis Stevenson tells us. I’ve always been given to understand he spent most of his childhood bedridden. True or not, the idea that someone confined to bed might be able to see how full-up life is seems to beg the point.
We the bored have no one to blame but ourselves.
When I say I’m bored, what I usually mean is that I am too lazy to do anything to amuse myself or, god forbid, anyone else. I choose instead to sit and lament that no one in life is bashing in my door with a heartfelt urge to entertain me. With the exception of those trapped in some non-life-threatening prison, I can’t help but think that, for the rest of us, boredom is merely a lack of effort or imagination.
One of the worst fates I can conceive is to be paralyzed, unable to move or speak, but fully conscious. Every man must choose for himself (or perhaps have the Senate decide for him on a holiday weekend), but please feel free to pull the plug on me in such circumstances.
Why is my own company so fearsome?
I will spend more time with me than with anyone else. As a single person who works at home, I spend most of my time on my own. I spend so much time by myself, it has become challenging for me to visit family or friends. When I am staying at someone else’s home, there is always someone else there. Yet, ask me to drive the car without music playing and I will give you the launch codes without resistance or argument.
We are quick to think our civilization evolved or even advanced. The idea of third world or emerging cultures originates from our presumption of superiority. But we are helpless in the face of the truth of our lives. We have created a construct for existence and filled it up with enough fish plates, salad forks and iCrap to consume every moment of existence with our self-imposed ceremonies of triviality. We bristle at the thought of being deprived of our portable phones, yet cower at the idea of speaking to the strangers of whom we thoughtlessly inflict our conversations and blinding text screens.
Every day I’m offered newer and faster ways to fill each precious passing hour of my dance, all to brief, across a stage made of stardust into oceans and skies and forests and clouds and everything between them.
I live in the most culturally diverse city on earth. Over a hundred languages are spoken here. There are millions of people in this city that sprawls over thousands of square miles of amazing real estate. The roads are jammed with people on their way to the countless occupations that fill our days and nights. We clog the freeways to get arrive and escape. We literally manufacture fantasy here to distract the world from the death row wait that life can so easily seem. Yet I am surrounded by people who can find nothing to do.
In the midst of it all, I check Facebook to see if anything has happened since I last logged on. I judge my life by the number of pictures I’ve taken of myself doing things instead of enjoying my life doing the things pictured.
Am I living my life if there’s not a TV special about it yet?
Am I bored or am I just unwilling to make the effort?
The problem may not be that I have too few options, but too many. Boredom, it seems, is a privilege afforded to those few in life who suffer the burden of choice.
Eric Shaw Quinn 
[Brian Williams? PLEASE. The man looks like Pierce Brosnan (Hot) with plastic surgery à la Cher. (Not Hot)]
I typically agree with you on most everything, but I should probably set you straight about something:
“There is more sensory input available from walking down a country lane on a calm day than in all the music created since the beginning of time combined”?
Uh-uh. I do enjoy long walks with friends, etc., but as far as “stupid teenagers” go- I would usually use the same expression- I think we have it right this time. Yes, I am one of those music-enamored/addicted/crazed teenagers.
I would like to know, sir, exactly what music you’ve been listening to and exactly which road this is. If you can tell me where this road is, I will walk it, and if it has more ‘sensory input’ than Muse, I will GIVE UP Muse. In the meantime, I recommend listening to a few of their albums. [Namely Showbiz, Absolution, Black Holes & Revelations, The Resistance]
Though I honestly think you’re getting the wrong culture feed, I do agree with this post. Life, to most of the population, is all about boredom! Facebook. Computer games. Video games. Texting. Myspace. Whatever. It’s all about boredom- boring you, keeping you bored, and keeeeping youuu boooooooored. For hours. And hours.
People need to stop caring about their latest Facebook updates. Sell the game system, and get rid of the cable. It’s like McDonald’s for your brain.
Amazingly, the best experiences of my life were not spent indoors with sociopaths who insist upon filling visits with Facebook stalkery. It was actually at Staples center, experiencing live a band of which the likes have not been remotely seen since Queen. The others were meeting a writer whose books kept me up till midnight or goodness knows, turning pages to see what-the-hell-are-they-going-to-do-now! [I think you know him, actually]
I would be banging on your door, dragging you out to enjoy life [if only I knew where you lived!]. But I guess I can only recommend ways to enjoy it, and hope you do.
I apologize for my reply being so long and a somewhat raving this time, Eric. But it’s just because we love you. Thanks for venting what I think in my darkest moments. I hope I can help get you out of this.
Darling! Love hearing from you always. Thanks for taking the time for a “long” comment.
And thanks for the music tips. While I don’t own an iPod, there is a constant sound track in my life — Have you discovered Pandora? You can create your OWN radio station based on your favorite musical styles and artists. I’m always looking for more, so I will check your’s out.
As far as the country road is concerned, imagine how many gigs of information and code it would take to create all that you see and perceive in a one mile walk, in daylight down a road in the coutry. Imagine how much data would be required to create a dragon fly, buzzing across your path and fying out of sight. Now mulitiply by light and sound and motion and shadow and wind and dust and on and on. I think that’s what I had in mind. Compared to the notes in all my favorite scores and symphonies and Gaga pale in comparison.
On the other hand, your trip to see a band in concert, now that’s going to kick our coutry stroll in the gigabytes for total data.
Fear not. I’m having a ball. Your favorite writer lives less than three blocks from here and I hear from him all the time!
I’m just in awe of the grandeur of the stage that all the world is for my petty little life. So fear not, but just to be sure, lots of long comments really help keep me entertained as well! Especially yours! Write Miss B
PS Lay off Brian Williams and Cher for that matter! And oh that Pierce, yikes.
Thank you! You’re sweet.
And about the music tips- of course. I can literally spend hours talking about music and love to give recommendations; the more people that can experience what I do, the better.
I’m the same way. Pandora… I’ve heard the name? I will check it out.
All right, touché.
But yes, I do believe the concert would have more ‘total data’. I mean…. I simply cannot describe it, you must see it. Fabulous! I love writing long comments, but sometimes I think people might not read them. [This is like “Julie and Julia”, except, you write back! I love this.] Speaking of fabulous, I dressed up as Holly Golightly to school today. [They asked for costumes, I provided one… 🙂
All right, then. As long as you’re having fun I can have fun! Was just a bit worried.
What? Bryan Williams is not that hot. I mean, come on. All right, I will lay off Cher- meant no disrespect. I’m just sad that she got that truly awful plastic surgery, she was so beautiful.
What’s “yikes” about Pierce? Did you just see The Fourth Protocol or something?
Sorry! I forgot. Will write Miss B from now on. I like it.