Caricature of boredom.

Boredom is most popular word. Everybody is bored at all the times. It appears that we need to understand what exactly is this ‘boredom’. Is it an emotion or sensation or need or desire or what?
There is one constant about human mind, it can not stand still. It is always churning on its own till it gets tired when it comes out of one loop of thought and goes into another loop of thought. Between two loops, the moment of pause is boredom. At that time craving for activity or occupancy of mind is boredom.
To understand all shades of boredom we shall have to go deep into the thoughts prevailing at the time we ‘felt’ boredom.

Few Examples:

A few days ago a young friend who graciously paid a visit drew the caricature above, out of Boredom. Whom is he calling crazy? Me or himself? Just procrastinating in boredom.
One day in the middle of an arguments a Judge declared he was bored. The truth was that he was unable to follow the argument around a complex principle and had wished ‘if I could run away from here?’ This boredom arise from inability of mind to anchor on any present thought and instead went into loop of anticipation of different surroundings. I wonder what were those surroundings? A bar? Card room? Or just home?
Another friend was searching some material on a legal site and declared he was bored. Now here was a case where thought was repeating in a loop of despair. ‘It can not be found like this. This not the way to do it. I am wasting time.’
A ten-year old boy was watching other children play in street. He was supposed to study instead of peeping out of window. In a while he declared that he was ‘bored’. Now this is obvious. Boy wants to play.

Back to understanding.

There are numerous examples. We only need to notice our thoughts at any given moment. Unless we are forced by our thoughts to do something or to be at somewhere else or not to do something, we can not be bored. Boredom is an ambiguous word which means that mind wants to escape/change the reality. What it sees is the reality. Keep changing reality. Boredom will increase with increase in possibility of changes of reality. Look into it. Live with boredom for a while. See it in action and it disappears because it can not work without the cover of deception. Boredom is a ghost. It will hound only if we let it.

© Sandeep Bhalla