Bored

[dukealien]

Bored

Why do we fear boredom so much
that, just for example, I have
chosen total anesthetic
over local, which is safer,
solely due to fear that I might
suffer ennui, this despite some
promised cheery repartee from
staff while they embroider on my
abdomen as they close up?

Boredom is a deep-set dread that
makes us do unlikely, risky
things we'd not consider if to
sit, awake and conscious, weren't our
only other choice on offer.
What's this fear which makes us cringe at
harmless inactivity, a
terror of forced cogitation,
or is something else involved?

In our emptiness, do painful
thoughts arise, of wrongs committed,
griefs at what cannot be mended,
fears of future threats that in their
formlessness or garish colors
seem much worse than pointless running
marathons of effort, or to
lose at solitaire or poker---
any company will do?

No, I say it's evolution
which has knotted up ancestral
DNA to cause discomfort
when we sit too quietly and
think. That's when great smilodons and
silent leopards pounced upon us
with our boredom interrupted
terminally as their white fangs
bored into our thoughtful necks.

--- = em dash (borrowed machine)

[shemthepenman]

this is interesting. i think i have a high tolerance for self-inflicted boredom. i think it’s called “laziness”. after reading your poem here i asked myself, and google, “why do we get bored?” the answers given were not very interesting, by either respondent. but it did say something about being bored waiting at an airport. how could anyone be bored waiting at an airport? also, why did you use “total anaesthetic” and not “general anaesthetic”?

[dukealien]

this is interesting. i think i have a high tolerance for self-inflicted boredom. i think it’s called “laziness”. after reading your poem here i asked myself, and google, “why do we get bored?” the answers given were not very interesting, by either respondent. but it did say something about being bored waiting at an airport. how could anyone be bored waiting at an airport? also, why did you use “total anaesthetic” and not “general anaesthetic”?

I did (first draft), but it didn't fit the Hiawatha drumbeat and I shied away from "gen'ral" on... err... general principles.

Bored at an airport?  Not when one knows what's going on behind the "authorized only" doors, even (especially) late at night.  Though watching CNN on the monitors for even a few seconds can induce that state...

I used "anesthetic" vice "anaesthetic" because my spell checker bought it. hrug:

[Youi]

Life is pointless. Do drugs.

[dukealien]

Life is pointless. Do drugs.

Many people allegedly do drugs because they're bored.   It does seem to make them rather boring people, generally, but perhaps there's a root cause or selection bias.

[Youi]

Life is pointless. Do drugs.

Many people allegedly do drugs because they're bored.   It does seem to make them rather boring people, generally, but perhaps there's a root cause or selection bias.

Root cause is probably our nonacceptance of a life without meaning. Otherwords, we're the center of the universe, we perceive things, therefor what we know HAS to be meaningful.

[Wastrel]

"embroider on my abdomen" - ouch! Felt that.

I guess it's the tedium of the inevitable we're talking about here.
Endure or anaesthatise....Id opt for the latter.