There are words which in our home we do not speak. Most homes have a set of rules that include words and behaviors that are forbidden, but in our home there is one word that I consider to be worse than the others because of the damage that it does. It is not a vulgar word, nor is it one that would be considered sacrilegious. This word is common among children and adults alike. Parents often encourage the use of this word because it gives them an excuse to do things they wouldn't normally do. In fact, it has become an icon of the American way of life. I speak of none other than the word, (oh, I just can't bring myself to say it!) BORED.
To define the word I go to Webster's New World Dictionary. The word 'bore' comes from the root word 'bor' meaning augur. The first meaning of the word is to drill a hole. The alternate meaning is a tiresome, dull person or thing. 'Boredom' is the condition of being bored or uninterested; ennui. 'Ennui' means weariness resulting from inactivity or lack of interest. So we have a picture here of a downward spiral drilling a hole and going nowhere, as well as a shameful lack of interest. Interest, by the way, means to have a right or claim in something.
To define words is to know them. To know them and hence understand them is to gain the power to use them. Thus, in defining boredom I gain power to combat it. When I was a child I had an instinctive revulsion for the word. I respected my own intellect far too much to ever accuse it of being bored. When I lacked the means at my disposal to interest me, my own mind would supply the deficiency. In other words, I would think.
The mind is capable of tremendous feats of imagination, skill, memory, creativity, deduction and discovery. Why, I thought to myself, should I wallow in boredom when I own one of the most amazing machines in the universe, namely, my own mind? Every book that was ever written was imagined first in someone's mind. Every scientific discovery, every invention, every work of art, every piece of music, every great accomplishment in this or any other world was accomplished first in someone's mind. To be bored is to take this most amazing gift and drill it into a hole. To demand that it be 'entertained' is to insult the native intelligence of the human mind. To me it is like putting Einstein in a cage and giving him a rattle to play with. The mind does not want entertainment, it wants something to do!
That is not to say that there is no place for entertainment. There must be some diversion in life. But when the mind lacks diversion it should never bore itself into a hole and become disinterested. Depression is like that. Creativity and/or mental exertion is the antidote for it. To create or think is to spiral upward, to become interested and to try.
Once I heard a mother say to her friend as they both watched her son fidget in the line in which they were waiting: “He's so bored.” If she had had her way she would have given him an X-Box and put him in a corner to 'relieve' his boredom. OK, just give him a mindless game to relieve his mindlessness? To lack interest is to relinquish ones right or claim. So to be bored is to relinquish rights to the mind and bore it into a hole, or bury it. To me, it is another word for dead. If you are bored, your mind is dead. Dead to the possibilities that are within itself, dead to the life all around it, dead to progress and everything it represents. Mind-numbing 'gaming' is simply boredom on life support. The mind is in a coma, but the movement in the game makes it think it is still alive.
The greatest joys I have known in my life have come though the creativity of my mind. To relinquish the right to that through boredom or any other means is a crime against humanity; my own humanity. The mind is bursting with endless possibilities which are largely undiscovered and untapped. If I owned a time machine I wouldn't use it for a garbage disposal. I own a brain. I'm not going to waste it being bored.
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