Boredom

when i get bored i teach myself a new skill. i'm currently learning how to build a website, kinda. http://desolatelondon.wordpress.com/

It was much easier to get bored as a kid and teenager. Now it's usually just the occasional meeting or similar that gets really boring. I very rarely get bored in my free time.

  On 9/17/2014 at 9:06 AM, mokz said:

 

  On 9/17/2014 at 12:32 AM, delet... said:

I have a saying that i have coined when people have enquired in this direction about various jobs that i have had, "Only boring people get bored"

 

Isn't this from a Pet Shop Boys song?

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DnvFOaBoieE

 

I've used it myself.

 

.. well done person with sense of perspective that isn't boring.

  On 9/17/2014 at 10:08 AM, data said:

only boring people get bored.

 

 

  Reveal hidden contents

 

 

 

sourcing, chopping up and naming samples. even batch processing

i find the whole process extremely boring but the final outcome is worth the pain

  On 9/17/2014 at 8:13 AM, Candiru said:

 

  On 9/17/2014 at 1:37 AM, Danny O Flannagin said:

I though American Psycho was a rather boring and monotonous book but something made me finish it till the end. Guess it was more of an interesting character piece rather than a thrilling plot-driven novel

I thought it was hilarious, scathing and a good satire that really nailed a lot of things. It even skewers U2 at one point. Very much of its time, but ahead of its time for sure.

 

I thought i remember patrick having some sort of religious/psychedelic experience while at the U2 concert

  On 9/17/2014 at 8:20 AM, triachus said:

this thread is boring

what don't you like? the topic, or the things people have posted?

I was listening this Buddhist podcast today and it said boredom isn't really a lack of anything to, it's a mental activity you can switch off - if you're good at meditation and letting go of stuff. It's more of a mood I find, in that things that normally interest you don't hold any interest.

  On 9/18/2014 at 8:52 AM, Danny O Flannagin said:

 

  On 9/17/2014 at 8:13 AM, Candiru said:

 

 

  On 9/17/2014 at 1:37 AM, Danny O Flannagin said:

I though American Psycho was a rather boring and monotonous book but something made me finish it till the end. Guess it was more of an interesting character piece rather than a thrilling plot-driven novel

I thought it was hilarious, scathing and a good satire that really nailed a lot of things. It even skewers U2 at one point. Very much of its time, but ahead of its time for sure.

I thought i remember patrick having some sort of religious/psychedelic experience while at the U2 concert

Exactly. I think he feels some sort of connection to Bono.

cole porter taught me the word ennui

way more posh than boredom

I'll say again this because I really want you boring people to don't feel like that. Really, just force your self to do stuff, learning new stuff. The hardest part in any project is starting it, so just sit down and do stuff. Fuck everything else, just start. Believe me.

For me personally, I always want to find a new thought every day - something that changes everything, but it gets in the way - instead of working on deepening my connections with things I already have or doing the hard work of seeing my commitments through, I am looking for a fix of [novelty?]

it's always a good idea to clean up your computer once in awhile: desktop , random folders, bookmarks, delete stuff

makes me feel good

  On 9/20/2014 at 4:57 AM, yek said:

it's always a good idea to clean up your computer once in awhile: desktop , random folders, bookmarks, delete stuff

 

makes me feel good

that's boring

mmmmmmMMMMMmmmmmmmmmm manually defragmenting

"To me, at least in retrospect, the really interesting question is why dullness proves to be such a powerful impediment to attention. Why we recoil from the dull. Maybe it's because dullness is intrinsically painful; maybe that's where phrases like 'deadly dull' or 'excruciatingly dull' come from. But there might be more to it. Maybe dullness is associated with psychic pain because something that's dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other, deeper type of pain that is always there, if only in an ambient low-level way, and which most of us spend nearly all our time and energy trying to distract ourselves from feeling, or at least from feeling directly or with our full attention. Admittedly, the whole thing's pretty confusing, and hard to talk about abstractly...but surely something must lie behind not just Muzak in dull or tedious places anymore but now also TV in waiting rooms, supermarkets' checkouts, airports' gates, SUVs' backseats. Walkmen, iPods, Blackberries, cell phones that attach to your head. This terror of silence with nothing diverting to do. I can't think anyone really believes that today's so-called 'information society' is just about information. Everyone knows it's about something else, way down."

  On 9/20/2014 at 3:30 PM, whylessness said:

 

  On 9/20/2014 at 4:57 AM, yek said:

it's always a good idea to clean up your computer once in awhile: desktop , random folders, bookmarks, delete stuff

 

makes me feel good

that's boring

 

but it feels good when it's all done,

imo

if you're bored, get this watch. it tells you how long you've got until you're dead. you can stare at it and actually watch your life disappear before your eyes

  On 9/17/2014 at 10:52 AM, MadameChaos said:

when i get bored i teach myself a new skill. i'm currently learning how to build a website, kinda. http://desolatelondon.wordpress.com/

  On 9/17/2014 at 10:52 AM, MadameChaos said:

when i get bored i teach myself a new skill. i'm currently learning how to build a website, kinda. http://desolatelondon.wordpress.com/

hacked

  On 9/24/2014 at 2:16 PM, patternoverlap said:

"To me, at least in retrospect, the really interesting question is why dullness proves to be such a powerful impediment to attention. Why we recoil from the dull. Maybe it's because dullness is intrinsically painful; maybe that's where phrases like 'deadly dull' or 'excruciatingly dull' come from. But there might be more to it. Maybe dullness is associated with psychic pain because something that's dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other, deeper type of pain that is always there, if only in an ambient low-level way, and which most of us spend nearly all our time and energy trying to distract ourselves from feeling, or at least from feeling directly or with our full attention. Admittedly, the whole thing's pretty confusing, and hard to talk about abstractly...but surely something must lie behind not just Muzak in dull or tedious places anymore but now also TV in waiting rooms, supermarkets' checkouts, airports' gates, SUVs' backseats. Walkmen, iPods, Blackberries, cell phones that attach to your head. This terror of silence with nothing diverting to do. I can't think anyone really believes that today's so-called 'information society' is just about information. Everyone knows it's about something else, way down."

Really interesting quote, in my experience, being bored means being forced to pay attention to something you don't want to, like if you have to sort something on a production line - you can't ignore it, and it doesn't interest you.

Or if someone is bragging or talking about their boring interests for hours and you're too nice to tell them to be quiet, and you are forced to give them attention. At one time, I thought it was the right thing to tell those people to go away and not be so boring - it's more honest, but now I'm not so sure if you can really justify it that way.

The quote posits the thing to be diverted from as somehow mysterious that we secretly know we are ignoring - I wonder what the author had in mind - the void? ourselves? death?

I kinda feel like DFW is riffing/expanding on the theme of a novel by one of his heroes here: White Noise by Don DeLillo. If I'm right, then death is probably the main thing on his mind, but probably not the only thing.

  On 9/25/2014 at 12:59 AM, yek said:

 

  On 9/20/2014 at 3:30 PM, whylessness said:

 

  On 9/20/2014 at 4:57 AM, yek said:

it's always a good idea to clean up your computer once in awhile: desktop , random folders, bookmarks, delete stuff

 

makes me feel good

that's boring

 

but it feels good when it's all done,

 

imo

 

i agree. but if you saw how much unsorted porn / pictures / music / whatever was in my downloads folder on my desktop you would recoil in horror. downloads does not contain all the downloads.

add to that the sisyphean task of organizing / sorting my music; and purchasing albums i like in better quality

and it's um, sisyphean. it's something to do but it never ends. and it's boring.

  On 9/25/2014 at 11:26 AM, hoggy said:

 

  On 9/24/2014 at 2:16 PM, patternoverlap said:

"To me, at least in retrospect, the really interesting question is why dullness proves to be such a powerful impediment to attention. Why we recoil from the dull. Maybe it's because dullness is intrinsically painful; maybe that's where phrases like 'deadly dull' or 'excruciatingly dull' come from. But there might be more to it. Maybe dullness is associated with psychic pain because something that's dull or opaque fails to provide enough stimulation to distract people from some other, deeper type of pain that is always there, if only in an ambient low-level way, and which most of us spend nearly all our time and energy trying to distract ourselves from feeling, or at least from feeling directly or with our full attention. Admittedly, the whole thing's pretty confusing, and hard to talk about abstractly...but surely something must lie behind not just Muzak in dull or tedious places anymore but now also TV in waiting rooms, supermarkets' checkouts, airports' gates, SUVs' backseats. Walkmen, iPods, Blackberries, cell phones that attach to your head. This terror of silence with nothing diverting to do. I can't think anyone really believes that today's so-called 'information society' is just about information. Everyone knows it's about something else, way down."

Really interesting quote, in my experience, being bored means being forced to pay attention to something you don't want to, like if you have to sort something on a production line - you can't ignore it, and it doesn't interest you.

 

Or if someone is bragging or talking about their boring interests for hours and you're too nice to tell them to be quiet, and you are forced to give them attention. At one time, I thought it was the right thing to tell those people to go away and not be so boring - it's more honest, but now I'm not so sure if you can really justify it that way.

 

The quote posits the thing to be diverted from as somehow mysterious that we secretly know we are ignoring - I wonder what the author had in mind - the void? ourselves? death?

 

when i worked at barnes & noble, i shelved books for two hours before the store opened: more efficient that way. the cruel management would blast "music" while i was shelving books. during christmas, when i had to wake up an hour earlier, that meant christmas music: she & him and michael buble. the worst was mumford & sons however.

wearing uncomfortable shoes, shelving books with o.c.d., confusion (fuck cookbooks) and regret. i had a lot of time to think then. i thought a lot about girls; about mistakes. sometimes i tried my best not to think. of course time passes more slowly at work, even more so at the beginning of your shift.

it was kind of like meditating in hell. you can't hide from a broken heart. it's like the song cool waves by spiritualized, or jake barnes' struggles at night in the sun also rises.

without distraction..

I had a few boring menial jobs in grocery stores in my day but honestly my mind was traveling to some utterly profound places. In the break rooms I would do some doodles of weird customers with tentacles or lobster claws on the whiteboard or draw bugged out faces on spoiled watermelons. But I also became a connoisseur of <$10 wine. My formative years. I learned a lot.

I'm bored.