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Is man boring or is life boring or is man’s life boring? What is boredom anyway?
Boredom is a state of restlessness, a desire to escape from that which is, an inability to be with the present, a state of disenchantment, a feeling of heaviness, of stickiness. But above all boredom is restless energy seeking an unavailable or invisible engagement that would channel it into forgetfulness through its excitement.
Boredom is the state of a mind that is seeking excitement outside of itself while Love is the state of a mind that has settled within itself and found joy there.
So an unsettled mind will sooner or later find itself peeking through the window of boredom. Boredom, in which case, becomes a precious window into the mind itself. Boredom is the end result of every activity that was undertaken with an intent to escape from boredom because a restless mind will sooner or later become bored with its new stimulus, new excitement and find itself at the same place where it had started – bored of and restless about that which is and seeking fresh stimulation.
For the most part we have sought to dispel our boredom through external means – relationships, entertainment, work, etc. And these venues do work to dispel boredom but only temporarily. And since we know no other way we keep moving from one activity to the next as a way of overcoming boredom. But if everything around us will go on making us bored sooner or later then should one continue to change the outer ceaselessly or is there another way out? Does boredom become exciting if one takes an interest in it? Or would that be too ironic given that boredom quintessentially is a state of disinterest, a state of inattentiveness.
Those who seem to know, the enlightened so to speak, claim that no outwards pursuit can ever bring lasting joy and that it is only in “going inwards” that there exists the possibility of this magic.
What is meant by “going inwards” anyway? One may call it – among so many other names and forms – as meditation. This essentially is to shut off one’s senses, which are one’s window to the outer world, and to settle down “within one’s self”, not seeking anything from the outer world.
This is an exciting idea but not fool-proof, for one may have stopped seeking in the outer world but now the same quest has started within. Mind has invented another pursuit, this time in the inner world, with the same intent of experiencing excitement and ending boredom. And the cycle continues.
“Meditate more” we are told. We try to but we fail – not in finding but in truly meditating. Our minds continue to seek outside of themselves for everything. In fact, few things hurt as much as turning away from the world and going within. This is so because for most of us going inward is a reaction to not finding any peace or joy outside, so we turn inward in either frustration or in bitterness but rarely out of love or out of wonder. And consequently this effort, like the search in the outer world, ends up being the same search in the opposite direction. But the search itself continues unabated, unparalleled, and unchallenged.
In the outer world one can still come up on tangible outcomes to one’s search but searching within provides no such tangible items to hold on to or to demonstrate. Hence the need to “have faith” and to persevere with patience, believing that one would come up on something if one persists long enough.
However, whether one searches outside on within, as long as the mind is searching it is restless, anxious, bored, seeking excitement, in confusion, in misery, and suffering.
So what can bring a cessation to this search? Either one finds what one is looking for – uninterrupted and endless joy – or one realizes the futility of the search so completely that the search itself drops but until then, as long as one is seeking one thing or another, whether outside or within, that which is sought is not to be found. Such is the great paradox of life.
