Boredom is a
condition characterized by perception of one's environment as dull, tedious,
and lacking in stimulation. This can result from leisure and a lack of
aesthetic interests. Labor, however, and even art may be alienated and passive,
or immersed in tedium. There is an inherent anxiety in boredom; people will
expend considerable effort to prevent or remedy it, yet in many circumstances,
it is accepted as suffering to be endured. Common passive ways to escape
boredom are to sleep or to think creative thoughts (daydream). Typical active
solutions consist in an intentional activity of some sort, often something new,
as familiarity and repetition lead to the tedious.
Martin Heidegger wrote about boredom in two texts available in English, in the 1929/30 semester lecture course The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, and again in the essay What is Metaphysics? published in the same year. In the lecture, Heidegger included about 100 pages on boredom, probably the most extensive philosophical treatment ever of the subject. He focused on waiting at railway stations in particular as a major context of boredom. Søren Kierkegaard remarks in Either/Or that "patience cannot be depicted" visually, since there is a sense that any immediate moment of life may be fundamentally tedious.
Blaise Pascal in the Pensées discusses the human condition in saying "we seek rest in a struggle against some obstacles. And when we have overcome these, rest proves unbearable because of the boredom it produces", and later states that "only an infinite and immutable object – that is, God himself – can fill this infinite abyss."
Without stimulus or focus, the individual is confronted with nothingness, the meaninglessness of existence, and experiences existential anxiety. Heidegger states this idea as follows: "Profound boredom, drifting here and there in the abysses of our existence like a muffling fog, removes all things and men and oneself along with it into a remarkable indifference. This boredom reveals being as a whole." Schopenhauer used the existence of boredom in an attempt to prove the vanity of human existence, stating, "...for if life, in the desire for which our essence and existence consists, possessed in itself a positive value and real content, there would be no such thing as boredom: mere existence would fulfil and satisfy us."
Erich Fromm and other thinkers of critical theory speak of boredom as a common psychological response to industrial society, where people are required to engage in alienated labor. According to Fromm, boredom is "perhaps the most important source of aggression and destructiveness today." For Fromm, the search for thrills and novelty that characterizes consumer culture are not solutions to boredom, but mere distractions from boredom which, he argues, continues unconsciously. Above and beyond taste and character, the universal case of boredom consists in any instance of waiting, as Heidegger noted, such as in line, for someone else to arrive or finish a task, or while one is travelling somewhere. The automobile requires fast reflexes, making its operator busy and hence, perhaps for other reasons as well, making the ride more tedious despite being over sooner.
I find Schopenhauer and Heidegger themselves to be incredibly tedious and boring. More than that, they are unaware of how boring they themselves are (see the cartoon above of the woman who keeps talking even when she has put her audience to sleep). Their subjective, dishonest, inartistic, reductionist universe comprises an unnecessary nightmare that I cannot force myself to pay attention to, an unfunny and utterly unenlightening theatre of the absurd, a jeu d’esprit for Hitler and his followers.
http://www.spiritvoyage.com/blog/index.php/how-to-combat-boredom-in-meditation/
1916 Rea Irvin illustration depicting a bore
putting her audience to sleep
Boredom also plays a role in existentialist
thought. In contexts where one is confined, spatially or otherwise, boredom may
be met with various religious activities, not because religion would want to
associate itself with tedium, but rather, partly because boredom may be taken
as the essential human condition, to which God, wisdom, or morality are the
ultimate answers. It is taken in this sense by virtually all existentialist
philosophers as well as by Arthur Schopenhauer.
Martin Heidegger wrote about boredom in two texts available in English, in the 1929/30 semester lecture course The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, and again in the essay What is Metaphysics? published in the same year. In the lecture, Heidegger included about 100 pages on boredom, probably the most extensive philosophical treatment ever of the subject. He focused on waiting at railway stations in particular as a major context of boredom. Søren Kierkegaard remarks in Either/Or that "patience cannot be depicted" visually, since there is a sense that any immediate moment of life may be fundamentally tedious.
Blaise Pascal in the Pensées discusses the human condition in saying "we seek rest in a struggle against some obstacles. And when we have overcome these, rest proves unbearable because of the boredom it produces", and later states that "only an infinite and immutable object – that is, God himself – can fill this infinite abyss."
Without stimulus or focus, the individual is confronted with nothingness, the meaninglessness of existence, and experiences existential anxiety. Heidegger states this idea as follows: "Profound boredom, drifting here and there in the abysses of our existence like a muffling fog, removes all things and men and oneself along with it into a remarkable indifference. This boredom reveals being as a whole." Schopenhauer used the existence of boredom in an attempt to prove the vanity of human existence, stating, "...for if life, in the desire for which our essence and existence consists, possessed in itself a positive value and real content, there would be no such thing as boredom: mere existence would fulfil and satisfy us."
Erich Fromm and other thinkers of critical theory speak of boredom as a common psychological response to industrial society, where people are required to engage in alienated labor. According to Fromm, boredom is "perhaps the most important source of aggression and destructiveness today." For Fromm, the search for thrills and novelty that characterizes consumer culture are not solutions to boredom, but mere distractions from boredom which, he argues, continues unconsciously. Above and beyond taste and character, the universal case of boredom consists in any instance of waiting, as Heidegger noted, such as in line, for someone else to arrive or finish a task, or while one is travelling somewhere. The automobile requires fast reflexes, making its operator busy and hence, perhaps for other reasons as well, making the ride more tedious despite being over sooner.
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A Note by the Blog Author
I find Schopenhauer and Heidegger themselves to be incredibly tedious and boring. More than that, they are unaware of how boring they themselves are (see the cartoon above of the woman who keeps talking even when she has put her audience to sleep). Their subjective, dishonest, inartistic, reductionist universe comprises an unnecessary nightmare that I cannot force myself to pay attention to, an unfunny and utterly unenlightening theatre of the absurd, a jeu d’esprit for Hitler and his followers.
Besides, boredom itself is useful. It is a necessary early step to meditation
and deep thought, a refreshing idea presented by Pirsig in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance back in the 1970s. Below are further insights about this
approach.
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How to Combat Boredom in
Meditation
By Liz McCollum Lord, August 19, 2013
Our culture has created so many ways for us to engage with
the external world. Television shows, text messaging, and countless hours on
the internet allow us to disengage with our own reality. Although we have
countless ways to fill our time, we often experience a deep sense of boredom in
our lives. Although our minds are occupied, they are not fulfilled. Yogi Bhajan
said “To have a poor mind and rich living is terrible; it’s boredom. It is so
boring you can’t even believe it.” Kundalini Yoga and meditation are a fantastic
way to develop a “rich mind,” but the boredom that we experience in life can
plague us in our meditation. Fortunately, Yogi Bhajan had much to say on the
subject of boredom and how to combat boredom with proper understanding and
through meditation.
Everyone experiences boredom.
Boredom is a normal and natural byproduct of the meditative
process. Gurucharan Singh Khalsa says in The 21 Stages of Meditation
“As we continue to confront the upsets provoked by taking charge of our mental
flow and learning to focus boredom arises; it happens spontaneously.” Feeling
bored when you meditate or do yoga does not make you a “bad yogi” or a “bad
meditator.” It makes you a normal human being. So the first step in learning to
combat your feelings of boredom is to stop making value judgments about your
experience. It is not good or bad, right or wrong, to feel bored in meditation.
What causes boredom?
It is normal and natural to set goals for our lives, and to
work towards those goals. Whether your goal is to complete a 40 day meditation,
or to run a marathon, goal setting helps propel us forward in our lives. But Yogi
Bhajan had something very interesting to say about the process of setting and
achieving goals. He said that achievement and boredom are two sides of the same
coin. What often happens when we achieve a finite goal is that we find
ourselves experiencing boredom. The energy that was propelling us towards our
achievement is no longer moving to a target, and we become bored. He said,
“when you achieve something it’s achieved, it’s over; beyond that achievement,
that target, there is nothing…in nothing there is no movement; it means
boredom.”
Connect with your Infinity to combat boredom.
Instead of limiting ourselves with finite goals, or looking
outside of ourselves for fulfillment, Kundalini yoga and meditation train us in
connecting to our own Infinity. By learning to rest in the present moment, and
training ourselves not to react to mental fluctuations, we begin to exist in a
space of limitless possibilities.
“There is no boredom in unlimitedness. There is no boredom
in the experience of infinity. Boredom shall hit you when things are too
defined, when your focus is too finite or too known. To defeat boredom, every
achievement should continue, should be extended. That is the principle to avoid
boredom, defeat, poverty and destruction.”
-- Yogi Bhajan
Have the courage to Keep Up.
Facing our own feelings of boredom can be uncomfortable. We
may feel like “bad yogis” because our friends and family seem to be enjoy their
meditations while we are struggling to complete them. We can wonder what the
point of our practice is, when our minds seem to be counting every second until
the meditation timer goes off. If we can use our boredom as a catalyst to keep
up, and press onward with a renewed sense of effort we will find that our mind
becomes our partner. We will become more alert and more in touch with our own
limitless capacity to be engaged in the present moment.
If you are experiencing boredom in your yoga or meditation
practice, allow yourself to become curious and see what insights you can gain
about your perspective and sense of purpose. Often our boredom can be a teacher if we can be
courageous enough to face it rather than run from it.
The book The 21 Stages of Meditation has a powerful
meditation called “See Your Horizon” which can help you to combat feelings of
boredom. The three parts of this meditation will integrate the hemispheres of
your brain, reset your autonomic nervous system, and allow you to relax and
surrender to your awareness. By practicing this meditation, “you become fully
engaged and boredom flees.”
http://www.spiritvoyage.com/blog/index.php/how-to-combat-boredom-in-meditation/
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