Slow update
I’d like to thank my friend Matthew for sending this article from the Boston Globe.
I asked a question on LinkedIn recently about what boredom felt like.
Some people who answered could not admit to feeling bored at all. Everyone is different, but surely not experiencing boredom would somehow be less than human. Don’t we all feel bored at times? Just the mention of PowerPoint can sap my energy and bring on a state of ennui.
What exactly is boredom? The online dictionary doesn’t help with much of a description, but boredom does seem to be an unpleasant state.
I usually equate boredom with fatigue, not that pleasant state of still awareness that you can develop from slowing down. I’ve been thinking much about opposites lately. Once you invoke a thought or an idea, you also bring into being its opposite. There can be no yin without yang, no wet without dry, no short without tall. I think it’s necessary to be bored just like you can’t continue to breathe in, you have to breathe out.
For me, I don’t think I am ever bored without feeling tired. Like mood, there is always movement. Either that mood is becoming stronger or weaker.
The article mentions Hallowell’s book CrazyBusy. Although I haven’t read it (and probably won’t), here is part of one review:
This book has some good advice about avoiding multitasking when you need to do quality work. I like its basic attitude about seeing our current craziness as an opportunity. I enjoyed the discussion of slow processors and how they contribute to human progress. I think Hallowell is a little too optimistic about what technology can do to improve human life…
And the reason for few posts on this site is I am writing a book about a slow world that takes place in a fictional village near Oxford. There is a fair amount of tea drinking and golf in this book that speaks of Marion Crumpetworthy the barmaid at the Maiden’s Arms, a cursed golf course that is so horrible it only appears once a year, the healthy Amanda Bassington, the smug Grant Manly, Lady Cassandra Dribble, and how Lady Fiona plays a round with the vicar of Warmsly after Lord Alistair went missing.
Make sure you are on the slow reminder list and I’ll let you know when it’s finished.
Yours in slowness,
Christopher