On Stillness

via pixabay

Well,

I'm back here again, with nothing much to report.

Has anyone else had that sort of experience: where you spent weeks and weeks in limbo. Not doing much, just the sleeping and eating and waking up and relaxing.

Maybe doing a little reading here and there.

That's what my few weeks post Housejob were like. And I knew that I needed that time. I spent only three days in October actually working, and I couldn't wait to just go home, and be bored. It feels like such a privilege to have that, I know. Being able to just be at home, and not bother too much about covering your cost of living without a job.

And when you have just the right amount of boredom, you can create the exact environment to be creative.

So believe it or not, today's post is going to be about learning how to be bored, well.

THE GOOD KIND OF BOREDOM

I remember the long summer holidays of my childhood. And particularly the one where I was a thirteen year old. Feeling confident about my new teenage level that I had grown into.

I felt too grown up to play outside running about with my younger siblings. Also, that summer was also odd because I was done with school several weeks before then. So I had to learn how to be okay with being all by my lonesome. And learn how to be bored well.

Tell me why I decided to turn to Shakespeare (ha-ha).

That summer, reading Romeo and Juliet, the unabridged version, I might add, I discovered that I could write poetry. And that discovery has been one of the most profound things I have stumbled upon in my life.

In many ways, poetry has saved my life. Many times. It has allowed me process traumatic events, it has allowed me immortalize happy moments in verse.

It has taught me how to stubbornly hope against all hope.

And to think a summer of boredom could do that, could possibly change the trajectory of how my mind works, and how I deal with life, it has made me ask myself if it isn't time to learn how to be bored, well.

THE CULTURE AND THE IMPOSSIBILTY

It is so hard to be bored right now in the culture.

Some of it might be because of the decade of my life I am in now, and the pressures to do as much as I possibly can to get ahead.

Some of it is just maybe the idol of productivity. The angst of not doing. So much that we do not even know how to be anymore.

Some of it is just our smartphones.

Many people are probably addicted to their phones. Heavily dependent on the next dopamine hit from watching a movie, from that text back from a friend or a person you love, from a partner.

It is so hard to be bored. Talk less of learning how to be bored well.

But that stillness, that quiet where we have all of our attention to ourselves, is so precious.

It is where an important part of our lives are lived. Where we get to discover our own innermost thoughts and desires. Where we get to pray.

Where we get to think.

Where we get to breathe. In an out, and notice the silence of the world. And the small, lovely sounds that break that silence: a bird singing, your neighbor walking out of the gate to work. The dogs barking far away. Your own actual life, happening in the midst of all of that happening.

HAVE I BEEN BORED WELL RECENTLY?

I can confidently tell you no.

In October, I scrolled through social media to my heart's content. The book I bought in August or so, I haven't finished reading it.

It is very hard, to carve out that time of silence that isn't interrupted by technology. By the angst of what is next. I think it might have made me a slightly more anxious person.

And I worry what it might have done to my creativity. Has my dry spell of writing poems just been a dry spell of having time to be bored and think, and observe my life?

Maybe. Maybe.

But let's not end this post in such gloom.

Let me share the news lately:

1. I got a new job, I am still trying to decide if I like it. But it's a walkable distance from where I live. And that is such a gift in the kind of city I live in. The morning walks are doing something for me.

2. I took a several day long trip to my ancestral hometown in Idanre. As usual, I was overwhelmed with emotion at seeing how beautiful the landscape is. Expect a blog post in that regard soon.

3. I have been listening to way too many podcasts, but I love how they give me perspective that I normally would not have from different kinds of people. Lecrae's podcast is a particular favorite right now.

My October boredom period seems to have gone by. But I will look at it with fondness, as the time when I rested from the work of being a doctor. And isn't it adorable. If you've been here long enough, you'll know that last October, i was resting from being a writer.

And now here we are.

I would love to hear how well you manage boredom. If it is something you actively avoid, or if it is a precious thing you are hoping to embrace again. Because like it or not, a boring life can only exist in a stable one. And how many people can say they have that luxury of a stable life.

Let me know.