I’m bored.

How often do we hear people say that? From kids being dragged around IKEA, to adults… being dragged around IKEA.

The great Homer Simpson, to relieve the oppression of boredom, entertains himself by watching cartoons in his head, and hence is content. Most of us would like to think that we do more productive things in moments of ennui, although I’m not so sure. Is what Homer does so different from when we turn on the TV and we don’t even know what we’re watching?

Boredom is a curious phenomenon today, in a world in which we always complain about not having time to do what we like.

There are two ways to look at it, if we have time to get bored. Either get frustrated and suffer, or enjoy your own leisure, and bathe in it for a while at least. Then you will be so bored that you will have no choice but to look for an activity that is slightly more interesting. That said, our empty moments are undoubtedly good for us. Constant stimulation is exhausting. We need time to regain perspective, to rest, to remember who we are. And peace is not the same as emptiness. Doing nothing is not necessarily wasting time. Indeed, I can get more bored when I’m doing something supposedly productive than when I have nothing to do.

I suppose we are creatures of habit, of routine. As soon as we are taken out of our routine, and if at that precise moment we are not offered an alternative stimulus, we feel bored. Aren’t we capable of creating, inventing, thinking about something for ourselves? So we turn on the TV and criticise the programs, as if the presenters were holding us hostage in some great conspiracy to rob us of independent thought and free will.

There is an alternative, which is not to be bored. There are plenty of things we can do; among them: read, watch something, do some exercise, play, chat with friends, or go out to find some strangers to bore them. Personally, I don’t get bored easily, especially nowadays with Espanglisher. But if I didn’t have that, I’d still be fine. I am actually an expert in the sport of looking at the walls and thinking while seeing shapes in the stippled walls, and at that moment I am happy doing it. Being bored in your own house is very difficult for me to understand. It is assumed that you have your own things there, the things that you yourself have chosen. It’s not about doing things all the time, but about being comfortable. For me, being bored is a symptom of not being comfortable. And as soon as I finish this article I plan to go and walk around the house without stepping on the lines of the tiled floor.

And I will enjoy.

Until I get bored.

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Episode Twenty-Two: Curious Words S to U