By: Patrick
It seems that as a society we do not take boredom very seriously. I recently went to a conference on the theme of boredom, and when I mentioned it to other people, most of them chuckled. “Was it boring?” was the standard response. Fair enough. For most people, boredom as a mood is of a similar status to minor moods such as frustration or awkwardness. It does not hold the same status as moods like depression or happiness, which keep academics and self-help gurus busy. And yet David Foster Wallace, referred to by many as the greatest mind of his generation, has just had his final unfinished work, The Pale King, published posthumously. It is a book about boredom. Why would such a great mind be so focused on boredom? Wallace even went so far as to say that: “To be, in a word, unborable…. It is the key to modern life. If you are immune to boredom, there is literally nothing you cannot accomplish”. This is just a preliminary piece to try and place boredom in context. I hope to expand upon this theme, looking at questions like: what can boredom teach us? Are we living in an age of boredom? Is boredom a ‘pathological’ mood? Is boredom a taboo subject? I am hoping to explore some books and movies that touch on the theme of boredom in order to try and make my own ideas clearer to myself. I hope shortly to submit a few thoughts on a book I am reading at the moment called The Book of Disquiet by Fernando Pessoa. It is considered a boredom classic!