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The Cure For Boredom

“Perhaps the world’s second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore.” — Sir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton

Now is that interesting, or what? It’s definitely fascinating. This is a topic about which anyone can get excited. Don’t you agree? Your curiosity is likely peaking as you read; and good for you. As Ellen Parr pointed out, “The cure for boredom is curiosity.” Read on. Your boredom is certainly about to experience the cure it needs.

Leo Tolstoy knew that you would be curious about this. He said, “Boredom: the desire for desires.” Be sure you examine this carefully. Boredom isn’t a problem for you unless you don’t have any desires but desire some. He may have intended that wanting to increase what you want can be boring too; but it seems likely that he only had in mind desiring to change total desire deprivation.

F. Scott Fitzgerald also had a useful perspective. “Boredom is not an end product, is comparatively rather an early stage in life and art. You’ve got to go by or past or through boredom, as through a filter, before the clear product emerges.” The good news here is that it may take a while to figure out what Fitzgerald was trying to say; so while you are pondering, you won’t be bored. If you get it figured out too quickly, you can also consider Jean Baudrillard’s comparison, “Boredom is like a pitiless zooming in on the epidermis of time. Every instant is dilated and magnified like the pores of the face.” As some teenagers say, “Yuck!” The idea seems to be that boredom is but a mere pimple on the face of time or some such.

Bert Leston Taylor makes the shift from boredom to bores. He said, “A bore is a man who, when you ask him how he is, tells you.” Christian Nestell Bovee was even more elucidating, “There are few wild beasts more to be dreaded than a communicative man having nothing to communicate.” Of course, he too was talking about bores. Louis Kronenberger even suggested a way of classifying bores, “Highly educated bores are by far the worst; they know so much, in such fiendish detail, to be boring about.” However, Byron may have had the best idea. “It is to be hoped that, with all the modern improvements, a mode will be discovered of getting rid of bores; for it is too bad that a poor wretch can be punished for stealing your pocket handkerchief or gloves, and that no punishment can be inflicted on those who steal your time, and with it your temper and patience, as well as the bright thoughts that might have entered into your mind , but were frightened away by the bore.” Okay, enough is enough. As Dylan Thomas said, “Somebody’s boring me. I think it’s me.”

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