When I was little I made myself a Bored Drawer. I’d write things to do on little pieces of paper and fill the drawer with them. Then, whenever I felt that frightening bored feeling coming on, I’d pull one out, make myself do that thing, and get un-bored.
Now I make lists to keep me un-bored, but they are nothing like my writer-friend Terry’s. Her lists, in rounded blue writing that fills an entire notebook page, are so tiny no one else can read them, which is good because no one else but Terry could do all the things on those lists.
If we’d been at Dartmouth’s commencement in 1995, Joseph Brodsky’s speech might have alarmed us:
Boredom is your window on the properties of time that one tends to ignore to the likely peril of one’s mental equilibrium. It is your window on time’s infinity. Once this window opens, don’t try to shut it; on the contrary, throw it wide open. For boredom speaks the language of time, and it teaches you the most valuable lesson of your life: the lesson of your utter insignificance.
But I guess we already know this. It’s why we keep that infinite window shut.
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