If ET is Bored . . . It's Probably Not Her Fault -- Exceptions to my "Inspiration via Discipline" Doctrine

Artwork by ET.

If ET is bored, then boredom without the complicity of the bored is surely possible. There are activities and occupations which may be inherently boring or at least so beneath the what was reasonably anticipated that they would and should bore.

ET writes in her blog, referencing mine:

. . . I have been thinking about what my high school English teacher Greg wrote about getting inspired (this too). I am totally bored at work and I am not yet sure how to apply his discipline-->inspiration theory there. To make more of my free time, I have decided that I must do one creative act every day. Either sew something or draw in my sketchbook or make prints or possibly cook, though if it's cooking it has to be especially awesome and I have to share. I think this will make me a lot happier.

If ET is bored, then I need to acknowledge that there are activities or occupations that are inherently boring. ET, being a young, modern-day da Vinci who could hold boredom at bay or attack it better than most, compels me to add some nuance to what I’d written in my last two posts.



First, let me begin with the premise that there are far fewer inherently boring activities and occupations than the history of human articulated restlessness would suggest. “This is boring,” should nearly always be translated into, “I am bored.” Those who frequently kvetch that this or that “is boring” or more accurately admit “I am bored,” despite their access to diverse activities and occupations, must have very few interests, if any, or an incapacity to develop an interest without careful, indulgent, perhaps maternal assistance. In other words, that person is boring. Characteristically boring.




The bored are, in their boredom, boring and they are particularly boring if they are adamantly, chronically bored. Even the Buddha would have to agree (though, of course, he might say that that this level of boredom is itself fascinating, but that doesn’t mean that the person harboring the boredom fascinates).

ET was very excited to be accepted as an Intern with a particular firm. Apparently, the people there haven’t availed themselves of ET’s capabilities. In this instance, she’s bored and quite powerless to change the circumstances.

Here are exceptions (inspired by ET’s remarkable capacity for discipline and inspiration) to the Inspiration via Discipline Doctrine delineated in my two previous posts (posts which many of you didn’t read because the topic sounded boring).These exceptions to the rule that most any activity can be interesting, are activities which are, in fact, inherently boring:

Exception One: Many jobs and internships available to the young. Twirling signs pointing to condos for sale, preparing fries in McDonald’s, washing things – anything almost, ringing up sales in an airport concession – these activities and occupations may be inherently boring. We can all think of – or recall – a great many more.



Now consider internships: When posted here and there, they are meant to appeal to ambitions, preoccupations, and predispositions of proven capable, excited, inspired, and disciplined students. Students compete for these internships many of which are, in fact, fascinating seasons of access into the students' conceivable futures. However, if the mentors in these internships fail, due to fear or negligence, to make use of the intern’s skills and excitement, then that intern is going to be bored and should resent that boredom.

But now look at what ET is doing about the lemon of a job she has. She writes, “I have decided that I must do one creative act every day.” There’s a practice for you!

Exception two: Driving. Driving requires very little skill of any kind – not intellectual, motor, social, or spiritual acumen of any sort – yet it requires our absolute attention. That’s a recipe for boredom. If you disagree, try driving without radios, iPods, cell phones, passengers, or new vistas.

Exception three: People with whom we have romantic or other relationships we should have ended long ago. When relationships are going badly, and have been going badly for a while, and show no capacity for improvement, and don’t even offer the spark of harsh words expressed in anger anymore, then we find that even the aspects once thought attractive about our companion have become boring. A lovely leg, a certain savoir faire in conversation with strangers or with this and that in the kitchen, skilled musicianship, card tricks, good teeth, whatever . . . it all becomes just so tedious. Yes, we recognize that leg as lovely, that gentle facility with the guitar as admirable, but . . . only to others. To us, in that moment, there is, in fact, nothing there.

Exception four: My blog. Apparently. Unless you’ve read this far. Then I guess it’s not boring.

Exception five: Ourselves. We bore ourselves when we don’t make the effort to be inspired, to fight through the ennui attendant to life and its existential despair.

Exception six: Existentialism . . . at least some expressions of it that seem so comically pretentious.

Exception seven: People who are chronically irritable – and especially a subset thereof: spoiled children.

Exception eight: Clingy people. In the abstract, what makes them so clingy is interesting, but we need distance from actual clingy people before their clinginess becomes intriguing. Same is probably true for irritable people and spoiled children.

Exception nine: Relatively simple phenomena that seem so exciting initially and so we hurry to experience it over and over again as soon as possible and in so doing we find it becomes . . . boring. “No, I’m tired of ______.” Fill in the blank with your own current enthusiasm. Often, it’s songs popular about a year ago. But not always. Some of these phenomena remain joyous for us. So why not all of them? Seems like a comic twist on the Buddha’s insistence that initially boring phenomena can become inspiring when we repeat them 278 times in order to force ourselves into the essence of what seems, on the surface, boring. Wouldn’t it follow then that if we repeat 278 times what initially seems exciting on the surface, then it would just get more exciting? No! Because the surface keeps us from getting to the essence. So the Buddha would have us look at the initially exciting, but now boring, phenomenon 278 times after it has become boring. This way, we see it anew!

Exception ten: Hurry. Hurry is an enemy of focus. Focus is needed to avoid boredom.

Exception eleven: Dentists’ waiting rooms. I mean really. Somehow they’re more boring than doctors' waiting rooms. Probably because we’re preparing mentally for serious business with a doctor. At the dentist’s office, it’s like waiting to have your car detailed or your shocks replaced.

Exception twelve: Busy busy business. Socrates said, “Beware the barrenness of a busy life.” Note that business, as we commonly understand it, is called, well, busy-ness . . . without indicating an aim for all that busy-ness. But what Socrates was getting at is what we now call “multitasking” with our lives. As my friend and colleague SN says, “When I listen to music, I listen to music. I don’t do other things while listening to music.”

Exception thirteen: Wannabes. Of any sort. Affecting whatever. We instinctively roll our eyes upward when confronted with wannabes.

Exception fourteen: Nearly all advertising.

Exception fifteen: Waiting in long lines.


Do you have any more examples?