Boredom
And so she woke up
Woke up from where she was lying still
Said, "I gotta do something
About where we're going"
You gotta cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice
- "Running to Stand Still", U2
It all started Tuesday at small group. We were sitting around catching up on each other's lives when Emily asked me a seemingly innocent question. I'd been recounting my life and running short on "interesting" things when she asked, "So are you bored?" Of course not - my life is pretty awesome right now and I have lots of neat things to do. Yet I still recently described my life as "going through the motions".
The question rankled through my head all through the next day, extending into the evening as I was on my way to go bouldering. Bored. Boring. Boredom. Counterbore? Booore. Boar. Am I bored? What would that even look like?
"Klytus, I'm bored. What play thing can you offer me today?"
- The Kleptones, quoting an old Flash Gordon movie
It amuses me that he says it "boooooored." Especially because the track in which it's sampled is the start of about an hour of ridiculous mashups - very un-boring. Maybe I'm boooored. (Yeah, tonight is also word soup night. Get over it.)
My life isn't like the death of a thousand cuts. It's the boredom of a thousand choices. (Not the "Picture Of A Thousand Faces" either; I'm not Eric Gales) I've got all kinds of interesting things I could be doing with my time, but I don't do any of them. I sit in my dark, quiet house by myself and sort through the ideas: "No. No. Definitely not. Maybe...nope. No. No. Not that one either."
My life is like my car. My car needs oil changes every 3000 miles and brakes done every third oil change (or fifth or some number. Not important right now.) My life needs to go to work for 8 hours at a stretch then remember whether tonight is small group night, climbing night, or something else. My life has to remember to go to sleep at some sane time so that the next day isn't awful. My life has to remember to go to Shift and church every 7 days or every 5 work trips. It's all just the routine and the required intervals.
I can solve any problem if I put my mind to it, and a lot of my to-do list is "stuff to solve/procure/do." I just don't see why it's worth the bother. The list is stagnant and my life progresses without those items being accomplished, so they can't be that important.
Maybe I'm deliberately limiting my choices and opportunities to avoid decision fatigue. Lately, I've been successfully social (remember, I can do anything I put my mind to), but I'm not "into it" right now. I get probably 2 or 3 emails every day about newly-scheduled or upcoming social Meetups. All of them go directly to the trash, though, with nothing new added to my calendar. I just don't really care.
Occasionally, I'll purposely make decisions that agitate my life's status quo. Sometimes it's worth stirring up "stuff" just to stir up stuff. Soon, though, that too becomes uninteresting. I've usually advanced some marker in my life as a result of the stirring, but then I become unmotivated for that too. Similarly, although my target work arrival time is 9 AM, my actual work time varies wildly from 8 to 9:30. Lately, more like 9:30, to be honest. However, that doesn't really matter either as I make all my meetings, stay late enough to get my hours in, and get all my work done. Deliberate malicious decision? No, just unmotivated to get to work early. Pushing my bedtime later doesn't help either, I suppose, though I find some little motivation late at night.
I touch the fire
And it freezes me
I look into it and it's black
Why can't I feel?
My skin should crack and peel
I want the fire back
(unattributed lyrics will help avoid controversy)
I could find ways to either make my life interesting or reduce how much I care about life, but most methods of accomplishing either goal have short-term or long-term prices I'm not willing to pay. For example, I can brute-force my "feeler" by selecting the loud intense music and kicking up the volume, but my ears will pay the price for that. I could peruse the small selection of video games on my shelf, but the cost will be hours and hours down the drain leaving only some imaginary fleeting sense of reward.
Maybe I've brought this on myself. Part of being an emotionally mature adult means not being "driven before the wind and tossed" by every circumstance that comes to me. I've learned to set by and watch the drama roll around me without being affected. The little death that comes, flows through me, and goes, after which I remain. But have I inculcated so much dispassion that nothing touches me? I don't think so, yet the evidence of my life might still suggest otherwise.
So I continue in my routine, because as my parents say, "if you don't know what to do, just pick up the next right thing."
Life's not a song
Life isn't bliss
Life is just this:
It's living
You have to go on living.
(more uncredited lyrics)
"The hardest thing in this world is to live in it."
- from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
Woke up from where she was lying still
Said, "I gotta do something
About where we're going"
You gotta cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice
- "Running to Stand Still", U2
It all started Tuesday at small group. We were sitting around catching up on each other's lives when Emily asked me a seemingly innocent question. I'd been recounting my life and running short on "interesting" things when she asked, "So are you bored?" Of course not - my life is pretty awesome right now and I have lots of neat things to do. Yet I still recently described my life as "going through the motions".
The question rankled through my head all through the next day, extending into the evening as I was on my way to go bouldering. Bored. Boring. Boredom. Counterbore? Booore. Boar. Am I bored? What would that even look like?
"Klytus, I'm bored. What play thing can you offer me today?"
- The Kleptones, quoting an old Flash Gordon movie
It amuses me that he says it "boooooored." Especially because the track in which it's sampled is the start of about an hour of ridiculous mashups - very un-boring. Maybe I'm boooored. (Yeah, tonight is also word soup night. Get over it.)
My life isn't like the death of a thousand cuts. It's the boredom of a thousand choices. (Not the "Picture Of A Thousand Faces" either; I'm not Eric Gales) I've got all kinds of interesting things I could be doing with my time, but I don't do any of them. I sit in my dark, quiet house by myself and sort through the ideas: "No. No. Definitely not. Maybe...nope. No. No. Not that one either."
My life is like my car. My car needs oil changes every 3000 miles and brakes done every third oil change (or fifth or some number. Not important right now.) My life needs to go to work for 8 hours at a stretch then remember whether tonight is small group night, climbing night, or something else. My life has to remember to go to sleep at some sane time so that the next day isn't awful. My life has to remember to go to Shift and church every 7 days or every 5 work trips. It's all just the routine and the required intervals.
I can solve any problem if I put my mind to it, and a lot of my to-do list is "stuff to solve/procure/do." I just don't see why it's worth the bother. The list is stagnant and my life progresses without those items being accomplished, so they can't be that important.
Maybe I'm deliberately limiting my choices and opportunities to avoid decision fatigue. Lately, I've been successfully social (remember, I can do anything I put my mind to), but I'm not "into it" right now. I get probably 2 or 3 emails every day about newly-scheduled or upcoming social Meetups. All of them go directly to the trash, though, with nothing new added to my calendar. I just don't really care.
Occasionally, I'll purposely make decisions that agitate my life's status quo. Sometimes it's worth stirring up "stuff" just to stir up stuff. Soon, though, that too becomes uninteresting. I've usually advanced some marker in my life as a result of the stirring, but then I become unmotivated for that too. Similarly, although my target work arrival time is 9 AM, my actual work time varies wildly from 8 to 9:30. Lately, more like 9:30, to be honest. However, that doesn't really matter either as I make all my meetings, stay late enough to get my hours in, and get all my work done. Deliberate malicious decision? No, just unmotivated to get to work early. Pushing my bedtime later doesn't help either, I suppose, though I find some little motivation late at night.
I touch the fire
And it freezes me
I look into it and it's black
Why can't I feel?
My skin should crack and peel
I want the fire back
(unattributed lyrics will help avoid controversy)
I could find ways to either make my life interesting or reduce how much I care about life, but most methods of accomplishing either goal have short-term or long-term prices I'm not willing to pay. For example, I can brute-force my "feeler" by selecting the loud intense music and kicking up the volume, but my ears will pay the price for that. I could peruse the small selection of video games on my shelf, but the cost will be hours and hours down the drain leaving only some imaginary fleeting sense of reward.
Maybe I've brought this on myself. Part of being an emotionally mature adult means not being "driven before the wind and tossed" by every circumstance that comes to me. I've learned to set by and watch the drama roll around me without being affected. The little death that comes, flows through me, and goes, after which I remain. But have I inculcated so much dispassion that nothing touches me? I don't think so, yet the evidence of my life might still suggest otherwise.
So I continue in my routine, because as my parents say, "if you don't know what to do, just pick up the next right thing."
Life's not a song
Life isn't bliss
Life is just this:
It's living
You have to go on living.
(more uncredited lyrics)
"The hardest thing in this world is to live in it."
- from "Buffy the Vampire Slayer"
Labels: life
posted by The student of life at 5:17 PM
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