The Apex of Boredom

In the week or so since my last entry, I have been busy being not particularly busy, by which I mean I have been at work. Okay, perhaps that is a little flippant; I am merely trying to point out that the day-to-day life of a sales assistant is at the whim of his customers. And as I have come to learn over the past few days, the vast majority of this particular sales assistant's customers have better things to do during the middle of the week than buy greeting cards for distant relatives, not to mention even more distant occasions, that they really couldn't care less about. Not that I blame them; after all, such trivial concerns can usually wait until the weekend when instead of trying to find time, they are trying to fill it. However, as a direct result, this means that working during the week can often be a particularly tedious affair and this brings me to the crux of this post: boredom. Now before you decide to stop reading, I would just like to mention that it is not my aim to induce crippling ennui in the minds of all those who read this (although, as a sort of rudimentary disclaimer, I should also say that I cannot rule out the possibility of such an ironic eventuality). No, rather this is a meditation born of boredom, on what it means to be bored.

Of all the emotional states that we experience on a regular basis, I would hazard a guess that boredom is both the one that we experience the most and yet think about the least in any level of detail. Perhaps this isn't particularly surprising; after all, boredom seems no more complex than switching a light on and off. We simply realise that we are bored and decide to do something to alleviate the symptoms. If successful, we rarely even acknowledge the fact of the matter; rather, the feeling simply vanishes. For this reason, I suppose it is no wonder that we don't dwell upon boredom in the same way that we might dwell upon other more obvious and seemingly intricate emotional states, whether positive or negative, such as being relaxed or feeling anxious. Nevertheless, after experiencing more than my fair share of boredom in the past week, I can't help but feel that it is a lot more complicated than we like to think. For instance, although I would agree that the initial realisation of one's boredom is often little more than a minor irritation, I think it is equally true to say that the intensity of feeling grows exponentially as the awareness is prolonged. As a result, what may begin as a feeling of mild annoyance can quickly escalate to a state of frustration and discomfort. Of course, this process is more likely to occur when we find ourselves in situations where there is very little opportunity for stimulation. With this in mind, it seems highly ironic that at the apex of boredom, our frustration eventually gives way to apathy, which makes us insensitive to the very stimulation that we have been craving. By way of a somewhat crude example, I often find that on a slow day at work I have to consciously force myself to engage with the next unwitting customer, even though I have been waiting for up to an hour in anticipation of human interaction. In such instances, it is not that I can't be bothered to serve them, after all, that is the only reason I am there. Instead, it is as though I simply lose all interest in what is normally the most interesting part of the job. Furthermore, depending on how quiet the shop has been, this feeling of indifference can sometimes even extend beyond the strict confines of work, so much so that activities that I usually value highly are suddenly stripped of their worth, if only for a brief moment in time.

Therefore, it seems to me that boredom is not nearly as trivial as we are prone to think. On the contrary, taken to its extreme, boredom has the potential to expose us to the fundamental meaninglessness that underpins our existence; a state prior to subjectivity. Although this may sound like a bewildering conclusion, perhaps the experience of being bored is a valuable psychological tool in so far as it reminds us that we are the makers of our own meanings. Mind you, that doesn't make me feel any better about having to endure another day at work.