Pujit Aggarwal Redivivus - Boredom
I scanned through the internet to ascertain whether there were any helplines or experts who could guide me as to how one can mitigate boredom. Not that I myself have any personal problem with this malaise. I have been fortunate enough to ward off boredom and its sibling sleeplessness most of the time. What baffles me is the frequent coverage and confession of boredom in the media including Sunday supplements of newspapers.
Boredom is rife in all walks of life, except in religion and voluntary adherence of rites it entails. A built-in component of confession, expiation, and hope infuses the prayers with a sincerity of interest that does not always inhere in social and personal transactions. An orison for boons of health and wealth presupposes utmost authenticity.
I have often found myself stifling a yawn or two against the unctuous patter of formal introductions. Come to think of it, are the perpetrators of such patter themselves bored while in the act of mouthing the yawn-enforcing inanities?
Boredom is a transitory state of mind when you are unable to engage yourself mentally and latch on to some activity or thought that can tap into the energy that is lying idle. Leo Tolstoy said boredom is a desire for desires. To that extent it is both a cause and a consequence. It can induce a reversal of an incipient choice or decision, or consolidate it in the full spirit of positivity.
It can also be the consequence of an ambient work culture that breeds and rewards mediocrity. Many a dropout has insouciantly flunked out of an institution that does not optimally harness the distinctive potential the putative dropout possessed.
Rabindranath Tagore spent a few years in the UK as a student but abandoned the course because he found it very boring. Boredom, ironically, saved him from spending the rest of his life as a lawyer. After his return to India, he was educated at home by private tutors. He was a self-educated genius who bloomed into a polymath no contemporary of his can hold a candle to.
Boredom is a vacuum in search of content, a vacancy in search of a suitable candidate. It is a form of lassitude with substantial potential. The precise opposite of boredom is not being occupied mechanically in something or the other or espousing workaholism. Its opposite is ‘flow’—the optimal experience—as defined by its prodigious proponent, the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Mihaly was an American professor of Hungarian origin. His name is pronounced: mihai-cheeksentme-haai.
‘Bekar mat baith, kuchh keeya kar. Kapde hi udhhadkar seeya kar,’ my granny used to reiterate while discrediting laziness. There is more than a grain of truth in her folk wisdom. ‘Don’t sit idle, do something or the other. If nothing else, take a piece of garment, unstitch it, and then re-stitch it. Keep busy.’ If persistent, it can be a doorway to burnout, even clinical depression.
Boredom is a transitory state of mind when you are unable to engage yourself mentally and latch on to some activity or thought that can tap into the energy that is lying idle. Leo Tolstoy said boredom is a desire for desires. To that extent it is both a cause and a consequence. It can induce a reversal of an incipient choice or decision, or consolidate it in the full spirit of positivity.
It can also be the consequence of an ambient work culture that breeds and rewards mediocrity. Many a dropout has insouciantly flunked out of an institution that does not optimally harness the distinctive potential the putative dropout possessed.
Rabindranath Tagore spent a few years in the UK as a student but abandoned the course because he found it very boring. Boredom, ironically, saved him from spending the rest of his life as a lawyer. After his return to India, he was educated at home by private tutors. He was a self-educated genius who bloomed into a polymath no contemporary of his can hold a candle to.
Boredom is a vacuum in search of content, a vacancy in search of a suitable candidate. It is a form of lassitude with substantial potential. The precise opposite of boredom is not being occupied mechanically in something or the other or espousing workaholism. Its opposite is ‘flow’—the optimal experience—as defined by its prodigious proponent, the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Mihaly was an American professor of Hungarian origin. His name is pronounced: mihai-cheeksentme-haai.
‘Bekar mat baith, kuchh keeya kar. Kapde hi udhhadkar seeya kar,’ my granny used to reiterate while discrediting laziness. There is more than a grain of truth in her folk wisdom. ‘Don’t sit idle, do something or the other. If nothing else, take a piece of garment, unstitch it, and then re-stitch it. Keep busy.’ If persistent, it can be a doorway to burnout, even clinical depression.
Boredom is contraceptive as well as creative. When spurred by introspection, gusto, and courage, it can work wonders. Farms lying fallow for a season or two, yield a bumper harvest.
