Boredom

Boredom - LKillKira

Boredom: the desire for desires - Tolstoy

I was going to write a boring post about boredom.  I decided to research some boring boredom quotes to make it even more boring.  Sadly though I started to find the quotes about boredom to become an interesting philosophical exploration into human nature, which can be exciting for some and even more boring for most.

I scoured  many pages of "boredom" quotes.   Below are some I find interesting.  I tried grouping them into themes or dichotomies (such a boring word).   I added some of my thoughts if I felt they were either insightful or boring.

Boredom is the root of evil theme

Work spares us from three evils: boredom, vice, and need - Voltaire
Boredom is rage spread thin  - Paul Tillich
Boredom is always counter-revolutionary. Always.  - Guy Debord
Boredom is... a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it. -  Bertrand Russell
Idle people are often bored and bored people, unless they sleep a lot, are cruel. It is not accident that boredom and cruelty are great preoccupations in our time. -  Renata Adler

Two major causes for strife are boredom or desperate need.  Out of both we seek something we are missing.  The first is for excitement and novelty.  The latter is out of survival.  On second thought maybe both have common thread of survival.  It is hard to survive a boring existence.

Without evil, the world would be boring Theme 

Without lies humanity would perish of despair and boredom -  Anatole France 
Nature is unfair? So much the better, inequality is the only bearable thing, the monotony of equality can only lead us to boredom -  Francis Picabia 
Morality is a venereal disease. Its primary stage is called virtue; its secondary stage, boredom; its tertiary stage, syphilis.  - Karl Kraus 

Why do we love gossip and the poison pen?  Why do we seek to hear dirt on others?  Why do secretly, and not so secretly, enjoy seeing the misery of others?  If all the world was perfect, we would be so damned boring.  I may think I am above this, but I do take delight in seeing Bush, Cheney, Coulter, etc. when they step in something foul and get flailed in the media.

Passion and love leads to boredom theme

Love fed fat soon turns to boredom  - Ovid

 I guess I can only think of one point to sum this theme up for me.  Complacency = Boredom

Boredom leads to dying or death theme 

Is boredom anything less than the sense of one's faculties slowly dying? - Arthur Helps 
To do the same thing over and over again is not only boredom: it is to be controlled by rather than to control what you do.  - Heraclitus 

When we give into boredom, we slowly die.  We relinquish our passions, desires and controls in the desire of comfort.  Ever wonder why fancy coffins are padded and look so comfy?   The dead wont appreciate it. 

Boredom has its uses theme

Boredom, after all, is a form of criticism - Wendell Phillips

In marketing you must choose between boredom, shouting and seduction. Which do you want? -  Roy H. Williams
Your true traveller finds boredom rather agreeable than painful. It is the symbol of his liberty - his excessive freedom. He accepts his boredom, when it comes, not merely philosophically, but almost with pleasure. -  Aldous Huxley

Boredom has its uses.  It is a time to reflect on why we are bored, what have we done to get bored and what is next.  Similar to the "boredom is the root of evil" theme, boredom can be the springboard to future excitement.  Maybe we have to look at boredom in the same way as we should look at drugs   they are neither good or bad, it is how we use them that can be good or bad.  I can use my boredom to inspire me to hurt the world or I can use it to find my next path- even if it is just a trip to the garage to rebuild a carburetor. 

OK, now I am growing bored of this topic.  August is the month for boredom, so lets celebrate this boring time.