What is boredom?
It is a severe disease, infecting millions of people all over the world,
where they constantly exhibit certain behaviours including lack of movement,
constructing various pointless structures, doodling, talking about pointless
things, writing pointless shit on their blog, reading pointless shit on other’s
blogs and so on and so forth.
There is no known cure, though the symptoms do seem to fade when the victim
is introduced to something different,
such as television or counting nails on the wall. But then after a while they
get bored with that too. They move on to more exciting pastures like Facebook
or Megan Fox, until that too becomes boring.
So, there’s no escaping it. It is all pervasive.
Think of all the times when you got bored with
·
Your job (or the lack of it),
·
Your food (Try Mexican, but trust me, all the Nachos will get to you in
3 days time)
·
Your cell phone (iPhone 4 is passé, I want iPhone 5 now!)
·
Your girlfriend/ boyfriend/ wife/ husband (And then eventually the
extra-marital ones)
·
The daily soap that you loved watching ( And that sitcom too)
·
Waking up every day, early in the morning (If you woke up every day at
two in the afternoon, it’s even more boring. Been there, done that! )
·
Orkut (Facebook, Google Plus)
·
Your hair (long hair/ short hair/ sort of long/ short)
·
etc
Conclusion: We are bored with our lives!
It has happened with the best of us I guess, and since the beginning of
time.
Think of the guys living in those caves; our forefathers. Hunting to
eat. Struggling to light a fire. And all those wild tigers and elephants
waiting to pounce on them at the first chance. And when they came back to their
caves in the evening, no How I met your Mother, no Satyamev Jayte. Life must
have been pretty dull, right? Ok, so there was sex. But then that was just (20
mins * (ok twice, thrice)3=) 1 hour. That would still leave them with the
entire evening to kill! So, they were bored. Really really bored. And so they said,
what do we do with all this time? And they started telling stories. Stories of
how they killed the fierce bison in the jungle, stories of how they had
delicious roasted bison meat for lunch... and voila... cave painting was born!
And then probably, when they got bored with that too, they picked up a
bunch of grass from the wild savannas, and like all bored people and started
tying them up together (bored people start joining thing: paper clips, shoe
laces, pack of cards, thoughts... it’s endless). And before they knew it, they
had weaved the first basket out of it.
You see where I am going with this?
Yes, the point that I’m trying to make is that, if necessity is the
mother of invention then boredom is the father of creativity.
Why do you think Shakespeare started writing those sonnets?
Because he was bored!
Why do you think Da Vinci took so much time to draw a sort-of-mysterious-half-smiling
lady, standing in the middle of the field?
That’s right, he was bored too.
Einstein, Edison, Bose: All ROYALLY bored people!! Otherwise, which
normal person in his/ her right mind would ever come up with that thing called
relativity, or that thing called electricity or think of sending information
through radio waves!
And then the Gates and the Jobs... bloody college drop outs! Yes, they
were bored with the lectures! The classroom! Like all of us! But I guess they
were a little more bored than some of us. And well, look what happened.
Now before you jump to conclusions, I must add that, I am not saying that
just because you are bored out of your guts, you may come up with the theory of
relativity or code the Windows operating system.
Yes, these guys were a little above ordinary, I suppose! But if they had
never got bored, they wouldn’t have ever known. Would they?
So I say, get a little bored. May be you will write a pointless post
about boredom. May be you will make a cool monkey out of paper clips. May be
you will doodle something which looks vaguely like torch batteries. May be you
will stare at the ceiling fan. May be you’ll think about the importance of ear
wax. Or May be you’ll come up with
the idea of time travel, or teleportation or wet toilet tissues. Who knows? The
possibilities are limitless.
I say it’s worth giving it a shot though. Don’t you?
Go on then! Get bored.
