The downside of constant stimulation
Posted on April 1st, 2008 by Christopher
A Philosophy of Boredom is an interview with author Lars Svendsen about his book of the same title from To the best of our knowledge. Svendsen agrees with Friedrich Nietzsche, that if we fly from boredom, we fly from ourselves. I’ve listened to some of this interview, and I’ll catch the rest later. You’ll need Real Media Player to listen.
Svendsen says that boredom is a sort of timeless hellish place of being in a moment that will never end. But this same sense of timelessness, of being here and now, can be an ecstatic meditative state. So what makes this state heaven or hell?
The whole clip from To the best of our knowledge is about doing nothing. An apt subject.
Wonderful!
I have just read Irvin Yalom’s “When Nietzsche Wept” that deals with this same question: Can we bear our own company when there are no distractions left?
This remains the single most important philosophical question to ponder.
And I don’t think it has an ‘answer’. But it can be ‘dissipated’.
When I let go of my ideas & expectations, I am left with a goofy grin and an ability to do nothing in particular.
I don’t think many philosophical questions have ‘answers.’ Because what happens when we have a pragmatic answer to a question is that we then dismiss it. We stop thinking about it.
It’s only recently that I have started to look at this hierarchy versus territory dichotomy. Hierarchy is about social position or how we look to the external world. This is important as we need food, shelter, and love. Or jostle for social position (which is a love substitute.) But after that we can look at our own unique territory. And this is the realm of creativity and generativity. Honoring our subjectivity means that our relation to ourselves is the most important one.
I remember reading R.D. Laing as a teenager. When I came across the words, “I cannot experience your experience.” This made me feel how alone I was in the world. Yet it was a strengthening realization. I later went to art school where individuality was encouraged. How authentically territorial! And by territorial, I don’t mean the corporate turf war, I mean one’s own geography, one’s own unique way of being in the world. But how hierarchical is most education. We are always looking for the “best” student, or the “winner” in sport. It is all extrinsic value. I think this is why so many so-called successful people find life perplexing and lack fulfillment. But ultimately we only have our own experience.
Nietzsche believed that you had to earn the right to understand him. That is also an interesting idea to mull over. The body takes time to heal. The brain doesn’t develop fulling until one is in his late 20’s. I know this because when my brain wasn’t fully developed as a seventeen-year-old, we used to say, “There’s nothing Nietzsche couldn’t teach ya.” Well, if you were seventeen you might find that funny.
For one person, traveling to Paris is a pleasant prospect to look forward to, for another, it is only hassle. Perhaps one person’s boredom, is another’s ecstatic state. It may be what we choose to develop. It takes time and practice for a dancer to become graceful. I think you have to practice doing nothing in order to appreciate and enjoy it. It is an acquired skill. For centuries doing nothing has been a status symbol. It still is in many countries, but not in main-stream American culture.
I listened to the rest of the radio program, and decided to buy Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers, and Bums in America. While I was there I also ordered, The Freedom Manifesto: How to Free Yourself from Anxiety, Fear, Mortgages, Money, Guilt, Debt, Government, Boredom, Supermarkets, Bills, Melancholy, Pain, Depression, Work, and Waste, and
How Not to Get Rich: Or Why Being Bad Off Isn’t So Bad. The trouble is, when will I find the time to read them?
I have read both ‘Doing Nothing’ and “The Freedom Manifesto”. The latter has become one of about 10 books that I consider gospel and that I dip into on a regular basis.
‘Doing nothing’ is more ‘academic’ and less chatty & practical. But his discussion of idle movies, books and movements is comprehensive and exhaustive: a regular compendium of slow culture.