“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone” (Blaise Pascal).
For some young people, the summer holidays seem to be characterised by a massive and persistent boredom. At least that is what the comments on the Internet and in real life tell us: in the countryside, at relatives’, in parks, and at restaurants: “Such boredom, bro!”, “No action!”, “Boring!” And sometimes these assessments are accompanied by reports on leisure activities. As the situation worsens, these young people tend to suffer openly and complain candidly, as if they were suffering from a disease.
Sometimes they share their suffering with each other and ask for advice. At other times, in solidarity, they offer some supposed remedy. They behave as if they were suffering from a common disease, and those in good health cannot understand them. It is a common problem and we have certainly seen it all around us. So it is right to be concerned and to try to help in some way.
Boredom between culture and daily life
Literature and folklore provide us with famous examples of boredom: from the severe or resigned immobility of Chekhov’s characters to the “ugliness and sadness” of the city dweller George Topârceanu in My Summer House; from Ion Creangă’s memories of his childhood fly-hunting with a book to Ivan Goncharov’s character Oblomov, and the list could go on.
The term “idler” has its meaning on the borderline between laziness and boredom, but it helps us to see that these states do not overlap.
Idleness is sometimes “practised” without feeling tormented, just as the cricket in La Fontaine’s fable spent the summer singing and enjoying itself without immediate worries. The Italians coined the expression dolce far’ niente to describe this state. Boredom, however, is always uncomfortable, and it can occur both in idleness and out of it, in activity and in doing nothing. Eminescu described the young people of our time as “tired without doing anything,” lazing around under the guise of studying.
The classic image of pleasant idleness, as it still appears in advertisements and films today, is of a hammock hanging somewhere by the sea, on a quiet island in the shade of a palm tree. It is not just the slowness of a good day, the blowing of fans, or the ceremonies of serving meals, coffee, tea, etc. It also has Western forms, in the bourgeois way of life. But boredom can also occur in a hammock and at a tea party. It can occur even in the most enviable state of relaxation and indulgence. Hence all sorts of energising initiatives, in general, through as many vices or dubious preoccupations, in the form of delightful incentives.
Boredom refers to the absence of pleasure, the state of not being interested in what you’re doing. It means not being in the mood for anything you have experienced, becoming more dispirited the more you explore, seeking ever new pleasures and distractions, or of greater intensity; it is also the attitude of blasé potentates everywhere and at all times. In the Roman Empire, the excesses of the bored and satiated were vividly illustrated by the vomitoria—the places where guests at banquets emptied their stomachs only to fill them again, sampling new dishes and drinks at length.
Even if the ways in which it is expressed vary from one period to another, boredom has one constant.
It always implies a weariness and anguish associated with laziness, inactivity or routine. It is an inner confinement, a lack of horizons and possibilities, an aversion to being alone or in the presence of others. It is the lingering and saturation towards a state without resources and towards all that is offered, sometimes with the feeling of being imprisoned in this state. Hence the overwhelming sense of helplessness, but also the fear that attractive or important things only happen to others, elsewhere. It becomes pathological when it produces a constant dissatisfaction with the events of life, with the present moment and the company of others, but also, consciously or unconsciously, with oneself.
Remedies from within
Here’s what you can find on the Internet in the way of advice and remedies from various young people who are “bored to death” and want to “kill time” more quickly: searching for or posting jokes, imitating various animals, pretending to play the guitar, drawing, putting on make-up, dancing, playing pranks, making faces while filming oneself, etc. Although the suggestions vary widely, they have one common denominator: they try to replace boredom with fun situations, as if entertainment were the alternative—as if it were the only state of mind to be desired, induced and maintained, and as if its absence would only produce negative states of mind.
The proposed remedies come from within the problem, from the position of the person affected by it, and therefore cannot be useful. They resemble the absurd way in which Baron Munchausen, the famous liar and adventurer, “saved” himself from drowning, horse and all, by pulling himself up by the neck. Failing to identify the real cause of boredom, immobility and ennui, many activities are proposed to combat only the effects. The only concern is to diversify ideas in order to get through a fatally boring time. And in the next similar phase, which will surely return, the same methods will be used. It’s as if, in the case of an itch, a thousand ways of scratching were suggested as a cure.
Sometimes it is as if we are trying at all costs to avoid the state that suggests boredom. A more serious situation, a more sober attitude, a solemn event, a serious piece of information—all these tend to spoil the good mood and, if persisted in, can lead to boredom. For the rebellious, any ethical, educational or civic situation or idea can border on boredom. This danger then becomes a justification for evasion, for avoiding participation, cooperation, empathy. In effect, they seek solutions to avoid triggering reflexivity, reason and critical thinking, to escape from developing their thinking, character, and personality.
Causes and remedies for this cultural disease
Many people can go through several periods of boredom. There are also cases triggered by an objective constraint or impossibility. The “one-dimensional man” of existentialist philosophy, for example, is reduced by the force of social circumstances to a dull, dehumanising position or to routine work. Chaplin illustrated this best in the character of the worker who worked on a conveyor belt, turning screws over and over again, all the hours and days and years of his labour.[1]
But boredom is truly unhealthy when it comes from the inner poverty of the individual. It can even be considered a disease when it betrays a spiritual and intellectual lack, a laziness to think, not just to act, a refusal to develop, a stagnation in a gregarious state of existence.
Spending time without valuing it, without using it in any useful, constructive way, but simply “killing” it, is also unhealthy. Each of the three desirable rhythms of human life—work, rest, relaxation—requires time to be spent fruitfully, and it is only natural that it should be so. But to use it for nothing, to just wait for it to pass, to resort to silly activities to make it go by faster, is the sick way to treat your own life’s time, and sometimes that of those around you. It is the equivalent of wasting treasure. It is said that when you want to show someone your love, you give them your time. So time is really a treasure that cannot be replaced by other means, such as money, gifts, declarations, comfort, and so on.
Konrad Korenz, winner of the Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology, pointed to the existence of “neophilia” as a cultural disease: “Since the progressive shrinking of the capacity to experience pleasure generally results from adaptation to strong and ever stronger stimulus situations, it is not surprising that blasé people are always seeking new stimuli… For the man afflicted with this ‘civilisational’ disease, anything he has owned for a certain period loses its attraction, be it a pair of shoes, a suit, a car, or even his friend.”[2]
Where does the decline in people’s capacity for pleasure come from?
From the dulling of the senses, answers Lorenz; from the habituation to a comfortable, lukewarm life, free from all effort, trials, and challenges. From all this, if they would accept it, the soft people of today’s civilisation could strengthen themselves. If they would struggle, if they would strive, if they would overcome or sometimes be defeated, the final satisfaction would bring them all the rewards. They would have the joy of life. They would discover all the joys of achieved goals, all the wisdom of painful but valuable lessons, all the self-esteem of their accomplishments. In other words, their lust for life would return. And with it, those pleasures and satisfactions that had been cancelled or dulled by boredom would come back to life and would give colour to the moments.
Specifically, the remedies that some therapists have discovered are either natural obstacles or limit situations that need to be faced. These can be deliberately organised and used in the treatment of “bored young people” (training in natural environments, employing them as lifeguards, confronting them with various dangers and the effort to get out of dead ends, finding solutions, and so on).[3]
However, it has been found that the awakening from this illness can also be brought about by the radical events of an epoch (revolutions, wars, crises), by creative work, even by accidents or illnesses that bring one between life and death, and by religious conversion, which brings peace to the soul but not languor. All this calls for a rethinking of the value of life and time, a revival of the joy of facing different experiences—not only pleasant, but even painful or disturbing, but constitutive of every complete human being.
The avoidance of effort and suffering is the first cause of a person’s spiritual weakness and involution, and the boredom of a lukewarm life is only an effect.
The explanation lies in the fact that the constant desire to progress, to improve as a human being, makes the state of dislike and disillusionment impossible. There is simply a mental transformation that takes place, a change in the quality of life. One becomes human by accepting that effort, suffering and the desire to overcome obstacles are the prerogative of every human being in order to achieve something, to conquer a territory of reality, to create a world. This is how Lorenz sounds the alarm about the perilous state that humanity has reached: “There is no lack of obstacles that have to be overcome if humanity is not to perish, and surmounting them is enough of a challenge to provide every one of us with adequate chances of proving our mettle and merit. It would be a rewarding educational task to make young people aware of these obstacles.”[4]
Education, therefore, has this crucial role to play in changing the current dismal mentality about the way of life. It is primarily the responsibility of parents and grandparents, and then of the school, for two reasons: because habits of spending time are formed from an early age, and because the time for education in this regard is more likely to be provided by family members than by teachers. Father Arsenie Boca recounted a memory[5] from his childhood, when his father taught him the most important lesson by asking him to promise that he would never waste time in his life. And then his life was made complete by the Christian model, which left no room for wasting time.
The Saviour is the example par excellence of complete fruitfulness of life, of masterly fulfilment, of victory over all obstacles, of eternal glory. And the life of those who have Him as their model is characterised, according to His promise, as life “to the full” (John 10:10).
Corina Matei is a doctoral student at the Faculty of Communication Sciences and International Relations, “Titu Maiorescu” University, Bucharest.