Boredom is a symptom of the unimaginative and the needy. These are the kind of people who never played hide-and-seek because it didn’t come in a box. They watch somebody else paint by numbers, record but never watch the same television shows every day, and spend the better part of most afternoons filling out inane surveys while their parents or grandparents rewash their mildewed clothes for the third time.
I know what you are thinking. “What about people in jail? You know that they HAVE to be bored.” Most in jail are idiots anyway, so no explanation is needed. (On second thought, since nobody in jail ever actually did anything wrong, maybe I should retract that…nah.) “What about people in hospitals or POW’s? You KNOW they can’t help it.” Those in hospitals and POW’s are not necessarily idiots, but the minute they bite the boredom bullet, they’ve lost.
A tremendous example of this principle is the book Papillon. If you have never read Papillon, do so. It is about a wrongfully convicted man who never allows himself to be bored despite spending YEARS in solitary confinement multiple times.
The word ‘boredom’ hasn’t even been around that long - only a few hundred years. That’s right - your great-great-great grandparents would be ashamed. Back then, people neither had the time nor life expectancy to throw a fit because somebody took Might Ducks 2 out of their portable DVD player.What has become of us? We, the supposedly master bipedal primates, are now nothing more than blind kittens whining because our particular swollen teats just aren’t big and fun enough to suck. Whatever happened to being elated for finding a dead bird in the snow? Hell, what happened to finally going inside simply because you couldn’t see a damn thing?
When somebody says ‘I’m bored.’, John Wayne Gacy is brought back from the grave and given a small child with which to have his way. More to the point, when somebody says ‘I’m bored.’, what he or she really means is, ‘I’M BORING.’
