The downside of constant stimulation
Posted on April 1st, 2008 by Christopher
A Philosophy of Boredom is an interview with author Lars Svendsen about his book of the same title from To the best of our knowledge. Svendsen agrees with Friedrich Nietzsche, that if we fly from boredom, we fly from ourselves. I’ve listened to some of this interview, and I’ll catch the rest later. You’ll need Real Media Player to listen.
Svendsen says that boredom is a sort of timeless hellish place of being in a moment that will never end. But this same sense of timelessness, of being here and now, can be an ecstatic meditative state. So what makes this state heaven or hell?
The whole clip from To the best of our knowledge is about doing nothing. An apt subject.
Wonderful!
I have just read Irvin Yalom’s “When Nietzsche Wept” that deals with this same question: Can we bear our own company when there are no distractions left?
This remains the single most important philosophical question to ponder.
And I don’t think it has an ‘answer’. But it can be ‘dissipated’.
When I let go of my ideas & expectations, I am left with a goofy grin and an ability to do nothing in particular.
I don’t think many philosophical questions have ‘answers.’ Because what happens when we have a pragmatic answer to a question is that we then dismiss it. We stop thinking about it.
It’s only recently that I have started to look at this hierarchy versus territory dichotomy. Hierarchy is about social position or how we look to the external world. This is important as we need food, shelter, and love. Or jostle for social position (which is a love substitute.) But after that we can look at our own unique territory. And this is the realm of creativity and generativity. Honoring our subjectivity means that our relation to ourselves is the most important one.
I remember reading R.D. Laing as a teenager. When I came across the words, “I cannot experience your experience.” This made me feel how alone I was in the world. Yet it was a strength