I normally am not one to be quick to hand out advice. I am also aware that when people are bored, that often means that they are not really open to advice given by someone who proposes to remedy their boredom. This problem of being bored in life is not new. It is greatly prevalent today, even with today's vast and ever-present, ever-available entertainment options. It was also sometimes a problem in years gone by, one would think with more justification for it back then, since there were far fewer entertainment options available in those pre-electronic "dark ages." I am probably not really qualified to assess which generation had the greater problem with boredom, but my perception is that we are not making great progress today in remedying the boredom that eats away at the lives of many people.
Today we have more of a conception that we are not supposed to be bored, not supposed to tolerate the feeling of boredom or quietness, and the result is that we are frequently stressed and anxious, and always looking for distractions to turn us away from our inner mull. We seem to think we should keep our thoughts always bathed in various stimuli, supposing that we should never just be alone with ourselves and the resources of our inward self. It seems to me that people of earlier generations, having fewer entertaining distractions available, were more inclined to make peace with the inner workings of their minds, more likely to turn to creativity to express their inner restlessness and drive, and more oriented to generating their own entertainments, not expecting entertainment to be constantly piped into themselves.
A joke which I heard back in the 1970s is an illustration of what I see as our contemporary quandary. During that time, color TV was replacing the earlier black and white TVs, and many, many more channels were being added to the list of TV choices. The joke projected the hearers into the future, when, someday, we'll have 500 channels to watch, far more than our customary three or four channels in the old days; 500 channels! and still nothing interesting on to watch! OK, fast forward to 2017, most of us have many more than 500 channel options for TV watching, we could binge-watch movies 24/7, we could listen to music for interminable hours, we could keep the CNN or Fox commentaries constantly on; we could watch the weather patterns everywhere in the world and unrelentingly view replays of past storms. We have so many options for distractions, many of which are trivial wastes of time, but we have the idea that we should never allow ourselves to just be quiet, to just discover the interestingness of our own thoughts, to just enjoy being, or to just pay attention to the world of nature around us. It is amazing how many of us will go out into nature to run or to walk for exercise, but with an ear bud in the ear to provide us with distracting entertainments as we perform our exercise drill. Why drown a perfectly good outing, with all its sounds and smells and sights, by pouring a glut of canned sound all over it?
I believe that one of the strategies which makes for more interesting living is to realize that there is greater satisfaction to be discovered in the serious side of life than in the so-called fun side of life. Having fun is of course an interesting sideline to our lives, and good so far as it goes; but it also is no destination for achieving an interesting and fulfilling life; it leads nowhere. The greater fulfillment is to be found in taking on the challenges that are before us, accepting responsibilities for trying to make the world a better place for all to live in, and hoping to contribute to real human progress and well-being in our time.
An old saying says that, "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy." I believe that to be true. So, in trying to direct a greater focus on things like work and service and creativity and problem-solving as sources of fulfillment, I want to avoid sounding as though one should always just "keep his nose to the grindstone!" A balance of work and play is essential. The Bible says that God created the world in six days, and on the seventh he rested. There is a time to work and to apply oneself to serious labors and purposes. There is also a time for rest and restoration, and for re-creation! When God hallowed the day of rest, he was not just issuing a command to be obeyed; he was setting an example and inviting his created ones to discover wholesome ways to live and to fulfill their potentials in life.
Another key to an interesting life, I think, is to discover that learning is for life, that learning is a reward in itself, and that learning contributes more than anything else to remedying the hollowness of a bored mind. Sometimes we ask, Why do I have to learn all these things that I may never use in my occupation? We may suppose that all we need to learn is how to make the money we need to provide a decent existence. The point to be made, I think, is that understanding contributes to the interestingness of things. An understanding of mathematical processes makes math an interesting pursuit, a source of satisfying discovery, not just a drudge that we are pushed to pursue.
Further, learning is for the strengthening and enrichment of life, not just an equipping of oneself with a set of skills to pursue an occupation. The greatest value of our "schooling" is that schooling may help us to learn to learn. We do not get out of high school or college or graduate school with a completed or "finished" education. A successful schooling venture is one which equips us to educate ourselves from that point on, to live a more interesting life of enjoyment and service and understanding and appreciation!
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Editor's note: Jerry Nichols, a native of Pea Ridge and can be contacted by email at [email protected], or call 621-1621.
Editorial on 11/08/2017