Boredom

One of my kids had to write a paper entitled:  "China - Friend or Foe?"  Talk about vague, if not unspecific.  Apart from relief that I didn't have to write this paper, I am inspired by the concept and will call this post "Boredom - Friend or Foe?".

Growing up I was told that "The (my family name) children are never bored". Truly untrue if it had to be said.  As ammunition again this vice, my mother often referred to the fictitious "boy in the hospital".  He and he alone was allowed to be bored.  Actually we never heard what became of him, even fictitiously. I still wonder.

Anyway, boredom, growing up, was equated with ingratitude and overall lack of character.  There was a strong implication that bored kids were shameful, spoiled brats. Sigh.  Doomed from the start.

In truth, I have often been bored.  Yes.  Not even just mildly. Yawningly, cavernously, soul-gnawingly, voraciously and so on.  Bored with tired vocabulary, bored with lecturers on auto pilot, bored with people who never try anything new.  Bored with bland food,  bored with song arrangements, bored with routines, bored even with...gasp...reading instructions and spending so much of my life being responsible, reliable and practical.  Not that I am considering a criminal lifestyle, in case my mother is reading this.

Boredom, for the most part, has been a powerful and even useful force in my life.  It has motivated me to take courses, read books, and jump headlong into new social groups.  Boredom has driven me to learn instruments, take things apart to make new things (sometimes successfully), talk to strangers, ask questions and squeeze the last drop of humor out of or into situations that would otherwise be, well, boring.  A tremendous asset, I'd say...again for the most part.  Maybe sometime I'll write another post on the cons of boredom. If I'm still interested.