Ok now to get down to business. The other night I found myself with nothing to do and consequently I became bored. When I became bored I allowed my mind to wander, and I began to ask myself why I was bored. Then I started to wonder…is it because my life is virtually perfect right now? My life is going great, and I have no real major conflicts. If our lives our full of problems and conflicts then we will certainly not be bored, but when our lives our going fine don’t we have less to do and worry about? But does simply being at peace make us bored or can we be content with the fact that our lives are simple and enjoy some simpler things in life? I certainly believe that my life is not as exciting without conflicts. I have summed up my arguements into one statement: With peace comes boredom. Please let me know about your thoughts on this topic.
Interesting thoughts Steve. I have thought about this before as well. This is what scares me about the concept of ‘Heaven’. Imagine if Heaven were real? Eternal peace and boredom! I just don’t think that I could handle it. At least hell would produce some sort of conflict.
Peace and boredom can be relaxing temporarily, but not for long periods of time. So that is why we are constantly looking for ‘trouble’. Unconsciously, that is.
I would say, without challenges or puzzles life becomes boring. I would love a life were I didn’t need to worry about paying the rent or having conflicts with people. It would allow me to spend time studying and thinking about the things I find interesting in life.
When I hear somebody say they’re bored, I think it normally means one of two things. One, they’re tired and don’t have the energy to think, but also don’t want to go to bed and sleep yet. This is the only time I really enjoy watching TV. The second is when a person is unfocused. Meaning they may have completed all their old puzzles and are now looking for new ones of interest, which I would consider a transitional period.
But if anyone were bored beyond this, I would say they have problems finding life interesting.
Well first off let me say I wish I could feel the way you do! I will not be “bored” in the way you say for many, many years. If ever. So be grateful.
Being bored means in a way that you didn’t care if you died. I mean ultimately. Because we all know death is the end, if we reach a point where we don’t care that much that it’s going to happen, I’d say that’s pretty good. The counter-argument to the “you’ll never be satisfied, you’ll always want more.” It’s like going to absolute 0 temperature, the closer we get, the better.
The saddest thing is people who experience their strongest emotions right before they die, for example maybe someone betrays them and they feel this great, surging anger and then they die. Well that anger was never fulfilled- maybe there was no vengeance.
–
----- With peace comes boredom? I have to agree with Pax_vitae on this one. Life has manifold possibilities, there are so many things that i still don’t know. So many things to be inquisitive about. At one of those extremely rare times when i was watching T.V. I heard Anthony Robbins exclaim, “Life is not boring, you are boring!”. I have rarely been bored consciously. I think that a certain zest for life is a necessary ingredient of one’s happiness.
Ok. So you choose Hell. Remember, you are no longer alive, so there’s no way to evolve, to change your state of being (to gain experience, for instance). If so, there’s no difference between ‘eternal boredom’ and ‘eternal conflict’, is there? In the way that there can’t be any action, literally, your state of being doesn’t change.
On the other hand, you are a forever opened eye, looking at yourself, knowing that you denied Christ. Forever blaming yourself, forever deprived of His Heaven, that is Hell, the way I see it.
What was the last time you went to a park and was amused by a squirrel? And what about the sky, and the people on the streets, trees, wind… do you stop to look at their beauty. I know I sound a bit hippieish, but if you are in peace (which is a very selfish and self-obsessed feeling for a person living in this world) then you should finally spend time admiring what is in front of you that you never had much time to do so.
If I had a perfect life… no job, no wage, no financial responsibilities… I would still have too little life to do everything I want to do… like learning all I can learn, help everyone I want to help…
One day, when I was about 14, life seemed perfect. I felt peace inside me and for no reasons whatsoever, I went to the window and I looked through it and thought that if I jumped it would make no difference because I felt that I’d achieved everything, so it was the end, I had no reasons to live any further. But, I was wrong. From the 7th Floor I spotted a very skinny dog sniffing the rubbish bags outside the building and I realized how stupid I was to think that everything was perfect. The world doesn’t live FOR me and it’s not trying to make ME happy… we are supposed to make it a harmonious place, not only to ourselves but to everything. And that’s why I think boredom, the way you are referring it to, is selfish.
If you are happy and in peace, than use your boredom to make other happy and in peace too. I would never be able to feel at ease in this world… there is much work to do, and boredom is just a lack or energy to do them.
If boredom tries to get me, I read the newspaper, there are lots of things there to put you off your peaceful world.
“People don’t want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.”
I know that this must be true for myself. The last 3 months or so my mind has been creating big deals out of what should present itself in my thoughts as nothing. As soon as I get over one thing and realise that I shouldn’t have worried about it, my mind manufactures something else.
-----YES! Instead of confronting their fears, emptiness, and loneliness most people simply escape by means of drink, sex, pleasure, etc. Most people are more interested in losing themselves than finding themselves.
– As for the subject of worry and regret, they only come into existence within the framework of time. Looking at the past i find regret. Conjecturing about the future, my old friend worry comes up.
Perhaps, but one must realize that peace is a temporary state. With the multitude of actions and reactions, the free wills of some 7 billion other people, and the caprices of nature, the state you describe as “peace” is not bloody likely to last for long. Appreciate the serenity while it lasts, for conflict will come around again.
People havent has peace long enough to know what to do after they achieve it…Peace itself has always been the highest goal…and when the highest goal is achieved most find themselves looking for the next step.
Im certain that there are many many paths that follow peace…its just that none of us have truely reached the peace part yet.
~JL
“My sword has been blooded, cleaned and resheathed, my foes lie before me with wounds of forgiveness, my countrymen cheer my name…but where is my peace…where is the ease of the war inside me?”
“People don’t want their lives fixed. Nobody wants their problems solved. Their dramas. Their distractions. Their stories resolved. Their messes cleaned up. Because what would they have left? Just the big scary unknown.”
However I like Chuck, his always writes as if we had no choice but destruction, either of the self or society. I don’t see why there will be nothing if we end the problems of life and why a life without them is scary. The thing is, life will never be solved and problems (not just in a negative way) will hardly be all fixed, whether we want them to be or not.
Being in ‘peace’ is impossible, not because we don’t want to be, but because there are too much to be found and complexities that we will never understand. We can reach harmony within ourselves, and if some people call it boredom, I feel sorry for them.
I agree with you. Chuck’s writing and ideas are great but he tends to come off a little preachy.
Destruction, I feel, would only work to a certain point. If we were to destroy society in it’s current form, it is all but guaranteed that once a new soceity built up, the same problems would arise. Maybe not…but I think it most likely would.
I have come with a similar statement: With perfection comes boredom. As for you i think you can entertain yourself with the thought that if life is perfect now then it’s gonna change soon. That should make you enjoy your rare moment of peace.
I have come with a similar statement: With perfection comes boredom. As for you i think you can entertain yourself with the thought that if life is perfect now then it’s gonna change soon. That should make you enjoy your rare moment of peace.
