There's nothing really to write about this week. That happens. Life is sometimes boring, and there's not much to be done about it.
Being bored seems to me to be kind of a recent invention. Our caveman ancestors didn't have time to be bored. Those were some busy people. They had to find food, avoid being eaten by cave bears, invent the wheel and harness the power of fire. All that stuff, and countless other cave-man chores meant that our ancestors were always super busy.
But as the millennia have progressed, human beings have got better and better at doing a lot of the basic survival stuff. Not many of us still need to hunt for our dinner or invent the wheel. At some point, we human beings discovered free time — and with it boredom.
People have come up with lots of ways to combat boredom. There's books and TV and movies and plays and music. People have hobbies — basically self-imposed chores to help them keep from being bored. The problem with all of these distractions that are meant to keep us from being bored is that they, too, can get boring.
So that's my problem right now. I've got tons of stuff that I can do to help me avoid my boredom, but I'm bored with all of those things, too.
One thing that some people do when they get bored is complain. Some people are so good at complaining that they make it their hobby. The real expert complainers eventually find ways to make money complaining and end up making it their job. I find that fascinating. It's basically an alchemical trick, turning boredom into money. I wish I could find out a way to do that.
Imagine how great it would be if I were bored, like right now, and I somehow figured out a way to complain about it and get paid to do that complaining. I mean it's not that hard to complain. A lot of times it's as easy as writing a letter or a newspaper article. That would be a sweet, sweet gig if I could just figure out how to get it.
Oh well, I guess I'll just have to keep working here until do.
Sean Vale
Editor
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