on boredom
in recent times, i've tried to keep careful watch on my expressions of boredom. i'd been meaning to write about this for a while, but of course, someone's already done it - as usual :). below are some excerpts by m.j. ryan to think about, and perhaps to try and implement in our lives. eventually it comes down to practising mindfulness in every moment. if we don't embrace the present but ever desire to go back or forth, can we ever fully realize the magic of the moment?
Boredom, they say, is created by an inability to delay gratification and a low tolerance for frustration...Any time we proclaim something boring, what we really are saying is that we don't have patience for it. Rather than looking at ourselves for the source of the problem -- and therefore the solution -- we look at whatever is provoking the feeling and label that the problem.Go on a fast for a week in which you refuse to consider any experience boring. When your mind begins to use that label -- in traffic, say, or on hold -- challenge yourself to find something of interest in what is going on, either in yourself or the world around you. How does that change your experience?If you tune in to how the warm soapy water feels as you wash the pots and pans, how does that change the experience for you? Or weeding the garden, how does it feel to bend and stretch in the sunlight? What *is* the name of that gray bird with the crested head that suddenly appeared? This level of experiencing life isn’t one that we tune in to, but it is one that can bear many riches of wonder at the very fact of being alive in this amazing world.
1 comment:
as we talked about yesterday, though, i think boredom can also result (apart from not being mindful) from doing something that is genuinely not challenging - and so can be something positive, in the sense that it tells you that you should spend your time doing some more challenging activity. For example, I could decide to do math and then spend hours just focusing on addition, and looking at 1+1=2, 2+2=4 etc; and everytime i feel i'm getting bored i can tell myself i'm not being mindful enough, and just try and focus my mind. but ultimately, the problem here is not that i'm not being mindful enough, but rather that i'm doing something that is just not challenging for my mental faculties - so maybe i should go do some calculus or something... :)
i also realized while biking home yesterday that the converse situation can also happen - one can get bored if one is doing something too challenging for one. so if i pick up an abstruse quantum physics problem, and get bored trying the solve it, the problem again is not that i'm not being mindful enough - its that i dont have the skills to solve it. so instead of forcing myself to be more mindful in that situation, i should go and acquire the skills i need to solve the problem.
apart from these kinds of situations, your point is absolutely true - that a large variety of experiences that we otherwise take for granted and take as too simple, involve many complex, little things that if only we were mindful about, we would really enjoy.
Post a Comment