Yeahno. We don’t live in a Hollywood action movie.
I remember seeing the sentiment on a Radio Times coaster: ‘I refuse to be bored because I’m not boring.’ At the time, I agreed with it. Later, I got to thinking more on it, and I was no longer so sure.
You see, everyday life is boring. There are thrilling events for everyone, bigger and smaller ones, those that carry us away willy-nilly and those that we may miss if we’re not observant. But they are the exceptions, not the rule, and there’s plenty of downtime in between. There’s tons of opportunity to be bored at work, or doing chores at home. Boredom is a thing of the mind, and one doesn’t need to be idle in order to be bored. Go do housework, and you will know what I mean.
So it’s obvious that having a boring job doesn’t make you a boring person – only a bored person. I’m not sure how the fallacy arose, but I can imagine it being a creation of the entertainment business; a gimmick to sell more ‘exciting things to do or see’. The Radio Times occurrence certainly supports such an assumption. I shudder to think what we would be like if we were stimulated all the time. Watching kids at a birthday party and, more importantly, at home right afterwards, can give you an idea. We’d blow our fuses in no time.
There’s not much one can do for boredom on the job. I used to go for the evening shifts in the office, when all I had to worry about, from halfway into the shift onwards, was the odd phone call, and got tons of writing done in the quiet hours; during the daytime open hours, workload could fluctuate wildly, and I couldn’t get away with anything fun while I had to be on call. Household chores can be made bearable with music – there’s no reason I can’t scrub and sing or shimmy at the same time!
The internet is another matter altogether, though. One would think it’s impossible to be bored while on the net, not with the tons of places to be and things to see/watch/listen to. This is largely right, although the extent depends on what everyone likes doing on the net. I’m not really into games or streaming shows; most of my time is spent on Elliquiy and WEaT, writing and socialising, and there are definitely slow times – when the writing muse, mine or my partners’, is not cooperating, or when nobody is around to talk to. In such cases, reading is once more my rescue. I don’t like reading on-screen, though I can do it for short periods of time, but the Kindle, or any physical book or magazine lying around (and there are many of those!) can oblige.
Come to think about it, boring people, whatever their flavour, are not good with words – they don’t read, don’t write, don’t have anything to talk about. Words, going in or coming out, one’s own or others’, are always a way out of the bog.
