Boredom is a sign of intelligence. The utterly stupid and the highly enlightened – both never get bored. Only the brilliant feel doldrums with the regular routine things. The ordinary people crave for stereo typed events and long for the status quo to be maintained. Anything new shocks them and change would upset them.
Animals never feel the pinch of monotony. Donkeys and monkeys, dogs and ducks, hyenas and mynas are perfectly complacent what they are and contented with what they have. They bray and gibber, bark and quack, laugh and chirp not out of boredom but to alarm, assert and attract. Boredom is the phenomenon of the mind. Beasts have the brain and men have the mind.
The quick-witted look forward to new occurrences and the unique features captivate them. They get exhausted with the predictable events. They are the ones who become changed agents, question the existing dictums, shake the foundations of authority and remove the clutches of slavery.
They are the harbingers of transformation. Edward De Bono, the profounder of lateral thinking process, cites two reasons for a conversation to become boring. The first is that no one has anything to say about the subject. The second reason is that what is said is routine, trite and expected. James Bridie Mr. Bolfry says ‘boredom is a sign of satisfied ignorance, blunted apprehension, crass sympathies, dull understanding, feeble powers of attention and irreclaimable weakness of character’. This remark is applicable to the common men in their day to day affairs. Repetition, familiarity, predictability and too much of exposure results in boredom. When a couple on the road is found very happy talking to each other, one could conclude easily that they must not be husband and wife. Love becomes thrilling as it flows like a river and marriage brings boredom as it hardens the relationship like a glacier. Hence marriage becomes the easiest way to subjugate love.
The people who talk about themselves will be boring to others. Braggadocios will never interest any one. If the conversation becomes a process for mutual sharing and incessant learning, it will be a nourishing experience. One should guard against becoming irksome to others. Any one who suffers from inferiority complex is bound to beat his own trumpet to others. Superiority complex is nothing but inferiority complex disguised under the garb of superciliousness.
Existence itself is evolving. The largest desert in the world – the Sahara was once a pleasant land with rivers and brooks – forest and grass land. Similarly Himalayas was not snow clad once. Status quo tantamount to death and growth is signified by mutation, modification and moderation.
It is in the womb of boredom, imagination got conceived and was delivered as discoveries and inventions.
When walking became tedious, riding came to rescue. While sailing became weary, flying became the passion. The people who got bored are easily satisfied with the best. Creative individuals keep expressing their alacrity to overcome their ennui through various means. They either flourish or perish but simply do not vegetate. All the sculptures, paintings, poems and architecture were created out of the urge to overcome the feeling of remaining idle. They viewed rocks as figures, walls as murals, words as rhymes, stones as monuments. Epoch-making inventions are the echoes of efforts to overcome drudgery. The creative people had to overcome the hurdles created by the society to prove the utility of their innovation. The famous dictum of Max Planck in ‘the philosophy of physics’ reads “an important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents. What happens is that its opponents gradually die out and that the next generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning.” Some times, the scientists have to lure the rulers with taxation that would accrue as the main attraction than the benefits which would be bestowed. It was not to be or not to be but whether survival or surpassing. Restlessness is different from boredom. Restlessness is negative and devolution of mind. Youth are often restless due to the mismatch between the fast thinking and slow action. If the speed in thinking commensurates with the pace in action, then it becomes dynamism. Youth wants to fast forward and the aged like to rewind the film of life. Restlessness is the friction between the youthful half and the aged remains. Youth is not just a stage of life but a state of mind.
A man of awareness never get bored. But to reach that stage is not possible through the quantum jump. One has to cross the corridor of boredom to enter the sphere of bliss. Men of awakening live dangerously and for them every minute becomes a thrilling experience. They consider repetition as death decorated and future has rebirth assured. They could enjoy every gulp of food, every drop of water and every breath of air. Life is a continuous renewal for them. They add the quality of attention to every moment of their life. Even the ordinary thing is become extraordinary in their presence. They look at even a blade of grass with reverence and respect for the existence. When they keep quite they do not talk to themselves. They feel aloneness and are absolutely happy with the universe. They do not want to prove anything to others. It is a state of satisfied innocence and not the stage of satiated ignorance.
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