Absolute Boredom

It happens to the best of people and even to kids nowadays -- when absolute boredom sets in and there is nothing you can do about it. Nothing, as in not even the war in Lebanon or the prospect of airplanes exploding over the Atlantic can wake you up into a revitalized state of existence and activity. Too many wars and too many people dying can make you feel as jaded as a reckless driver in traffic-crazy Metro Manila.

Not that you have nothing to do; important correspondences starved of attention, the laundry teeming with microorganisms for days now, a patent application that has become impotent for years and stacks of a new book whose launching has no better chances than a Pinoy-made rocket . I sometimes wonder if our desire for multi-tasking is merely a way of outrunning boredom or that we are people innately bored and merely trying to look for ways to prevent total self-annihilation. That apart from the fact that we really enjoy plugging in those iPods or solving Soduko puzzles, we are constantly avoiding that uneasy moment when we find ourselves asking, “What now? What else is there to do in life?” And so we work like ants and somehow feel good that we can do so, forgetting that work itself – much like boredom -- is a curse upon humanity.

I and my college friends once made a pact that we will not get married before we reached 25. We all fulfilled that promise, except for one who has remained single. After living through marriage and experiencing its glory and its humbling lessons, what came after? When all the kids have begun their own lives – or even the wife, for that matter -- what do you do? I also remember my one great dream to live someday on a mountain. After having lived for twelve years in Baguio and having climbed a couple more mountains, I feel I no longer have any mountain to conquer – at least, my knees say so. No more dream to fight for. So it seems.

But that’s boredom talking. Even the onset of symptoms arising from spending too much time in the Internet (blurred eyes, sallow complexion, muscle atrophy and metacarpal pains, etc.) no longer bothers one who has sweetly surrendered to boredom. After all, it has a calming effect much like a sedative drug that leads you to happily give up all resistance to boredom’s sinister consequences.

And to complicate matters, one encounters some people who feel or behave exactly the same way. And even though you try to pretend that you are not as bored as they are, you go home and realize you’ve been fooling yourself too long.

In truth, some people may appear more busy than we are but that doesn’t mean they are less bored. We party as much as we can but end up feeling half empty because we took more than we should have given. We go watch a funny movie and while the characters bust their wits out delivering the punch lines we cannot even reciprocate with one good belly laugh. And neither do the people around us. Movies are just another expensive though shared way to forestall boredom. Those who make money out of boredom-killers only have much more money which they can spend to kill their own boredom.

Boredom can suck out all enthusiasm from our bones. It can make us cynical and lead us to write articles like this.

Going on a trip might be a good idea, as a friend suggested. But it will not really make us forget what we carry inside or what is missing inside us. As the word implies, boredom describes a gaping hole within a person’s being which can only be filled with something easily within reach.

Yes, I’ve been through this a lot of times before. It is like the calm before the storm. It is like the waiting for that moment when a volcano erupts and belches out tons and tons of the Earth’s innards into the sky and back down over hapless creatures. It is the sigh before the fear. It is the bated breath before the big leap of faith and courage. Most of all, it is the sign before the sign; the great preparation stage for the revelation of some blinding truth we may have been waiting for.

Boredom may serve a good purpose if it leads to a commitment to change. Elijah felt the same way as he hid in a cave, wishing to die because of loneliness and uselessness. He felt he had given everything he could give and yet he gained nothing out of it. But that emptiness we feel after giving up so much and not feeling appreciated, is not selfishness in itself. It is merely a lack of awareness of the overall plan God has for each one of us. I saved you; why not many others, too, Elijah?

Rebuke boredom we must, for it will lead to despair. Consider it an enemy we must, for it can steal one’s hope in God. But how do we remove it from our lives?

By taking small and simple steps: First, loving yourself as God loves you and then loving others as you love yourself. Many get bored because they feel unloved or unfulfilled. Convince yourself how much you love yourself (hey, God really does love you and cares for you!) and everything else will follow. When tears start to fall from the realization of how much that love that God allows you to have for yourself can be liberating, you will know how useless and senseless it is to feel bored.

In the end, it is not the primary thing that God loves others and that we should also do so, but that He loves you enough and that you must not deny it from yourself. Be whole before you can be holy.