Yesterday I wrote about the increasing levels of boredom in the world, and about some possible causes of it, despite us having access to so much media and entertainment. This whole issue reminds me of a quote from Viktor Frankl that has always inspired me, that says that “when a person can’t find a deep sense of meaning, they distract themselves with pleasure.” This is extremely interesting to me. It sounds right, and it feels wise, and in a sense, I know why that is. It seems that most of us have a sense of duty, a sense of responsibility, or something we feel we must achieve, even if it’s just to be at peace with ourselves. We feel as if pleasure for pleasure’s sake is simply not enough, and I think that’s definitely the case. These days though, it seems like more and more people are content just living for pleasure, as if nothing else really matters. Now, we do have to remember that Viktor Frankl’s ideas were developed as he fought to keep hope in order to survive through the nightmare of the holocaust, and of having lost his entire family in it, so it might be easier to take life very seriously when we find ourselves in such a hopelessly serious situation. I understand the wisdom in the aforementioned quote, because having a rich meaning to one’s life can motivate one to get through anything, and although I know that we all have our own personal struggles, but the fact is they aren’t usually as intense as Frankl’s. In an ordinary person’s life, I can’t help but wonder what exactly is so wrong with pleasure, or with spending one’s life in the pursuit of it. I mean, I understand what’s wrong with too much of it, sure, or with chasing pleasure that is harming others. Still, the correct balance between duty and leisure, between productivity and pleasure, has always been a fascinating idea to me, something I just can’t ever come to any kind of conclusion about, especially having always been super interested in, and inspired by, hippie and counterculture history and views. In a rapidly changing world that is constantly attempting to drag us into its madness, whether on purpose or just as a product of life itself, it can be extremely hard to find the right balance between these two poles, between rights and responsibilities, between peace of mind and prosperity. On the one hand, there’s really just too much boring work, too much running around, and not enough time to truly enjoy the fruits of our labor, to truly immerse ourselves in our interests. When we do have a bit of time to ourselves, it makes sense for us to want to enjoy something that requires minimal effort. We might not necessarily want to do a lot of thinking after work so we might watch some TV, and there’s nothing wrong with that at all. There’s more and more technology every day, and it’s growing at an exponential rate. There’s really something out there for everyone, and if something doesn’t exist then it will very soon. Every second there are people of all walks of life working on creating tomorrow’s technology, having crazy ideas and making them into reality. This is great, of course, and as a result there is more entertainment, more variety, more apps for each and every purpose. Every day there are more and more rabbit holes we can go down, more interests we can individually get lost in.
This is Part 2 of a multi-part train of thought on boredom, each part consisting of anywhere from 500 to 1000 words. I’ll continue today’s train of thought in tomorrow’s post.
This is also day 138 of my personal challenge of posting at least 500 daily words on my blog.
I appreciate you reading!
rebel eye 