The Boringness of Boredom
It was my good fortune this afternoon to stumble upon a decidedly not boring essay on boredom by Joseph Epstein in Commentary Magazine. It opens,
Unrequited love, as Lorenz Hart instructed us, is a bore, but then so are a great many other things: old friends gone somewhat dotty from whom it is too late to disengage, the important social-science-based book of the month, 95 percent of the items on the evening news, discussions about the Internet, arguments against the existence of God, people who overestimate their charm, all talk about wine, New York Times editorials, lengthy lists (like this one), and, not least, oneself.
Some people claim never to have been bored. They lie.
Reading this essay brought back memories of childhood summers. "Mom, I'm boooored," I'd cry as I followed her around the house. "Then you can take the trash out and clean all the sinks in the house," she'd reply. Somehow, though, her masterful tactic never worked--neither to cure my boredom, nor to get me to stop whining.
Give the full essay a read. I found it to be a pretty decent antidote to boredom.
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Sep '10
Re: The Boringness of Boredom
Ain't Epstein wonderful?
Dec '10
Re: The Boringness of Boredom
My mom always replied, "If you're bored it's because you're boring." I use it on my kids now. They like it just as much.
Re: The Boringness of Boredom
My mom would say something like: "If you're bored, you must not be very smart. If you were smarter, you'd come up with good ideas of what to do."
And since I really valued people calling me smart, it worked.
Mar '11
Re: The Boringness of Boredom
I use this same tactic on mine. Funny thing is, I don't remember whining about being bored when I was a kid. Not that I didn't do it, I just don't remember doing it.
And Diane, you're right, that was a great read.
Edited on Jun 10, 2011 at 6:55amJun '10
Re: The Boringness of Boredom
Joseph Epstein is a national treasure. I discovered his essays about ten years ago and read them over and over. He has the talent to dissect and make meaningful the mundane things that all of us do or that happen to us (boredom, for example). He's funny, has insight, and writes the best content for parenthetical asides I've ever seen.
He's also a genuinely nice person. I've emailed him a couple of times to ask literary questions and he always answers with some brief advice that's right on point.
Stanley Fish just wrote a book on writing that Epstein review in this month's New Criterion. Epstein can eviscerate someone without even raising his voice. Here.
He also writes great short stories.
Edited on Jun 10, 2011 at 8:20amRe: The Boringness of Boredom
tabula rasa: Joseph Epstein is a national treasure. I discovered his essays about ten years ago and read them over and over. He has the talent to dissect and make meaningful the mundane things that all of us do or that happen to us (boredom, for example). He's funny, has insight, and writes the best content for parenthetical asides I've ever seen.
He's also a genuinely nice person. I've emailed him a couple of times to ask literary questions and he always answers with some brief advice that's right on point.
Stanley Fish just wrote a book on writing that Epstein review in this month's New Criterion. Epstein can eviscerate someone without even raising his voice. Here.
He also writes great short stories.
Thanks for the recs, tabula. This essay on boredom was my introduction to Epstein, but I'm excited to check out his other work.
Nov '10
Re: The Boringness of Boredom
I thought it was boring. Parts of it certainly weren't, but more parts were.
Dec '10
Re: The Boringness of Boredom
"I was enchanted with Key Largo for the first month and bored out of my mind for the last two weeks. I stayed, though, because boredom is good. People with a high tolerance for boredom can get a lot of thinking done."
-- Stephen King, Bag of Bones
Aug '10
Re: The Boringness of Boredom
Diane Ellis, Ed.: It was my good fortune this afternoon to stumble upon a decidedly not boring essay on boredom by Joseph Epstein in Commentary Magazine. It opens,
Unrequited love boring? Mes amis, where is the passion in that?
Honestly, unrequited love seems like one of the less boring things out there -- at least to me. Whoever Lorenz Hart is, I think less of him.
Nov '10
Re: The Boringness of Boredom
Yawn.