Writing - Saturday Night - Quantity

Writing - Saturday Night - Quantity

Quantity

Advice - On Boredom

The point of feeling bored in a long car ride is to learn patience.

You sit there, with nothing to do but wait. You're trapped, you have nowhere to go. You can stare out the window, but there's nothing new. It's just an eternity of monotony.

But the truth:

There's no eternity of monotony. Sit there, and eventually you'll get to where you're going, through no action of your own. Things change if you do nothing. Things change if you be patient, quiet down, and simply wait.

You get what you want, that is, to get to your destination, through doing an action: wait in silence while nothing happens.

Want to avoid knee-jerk reactionism? Spend five hours driving without a radio to listen to.

Want to think rationally after a fight? Sit in a room with your anger and stare at a wall until you fall asleep.

Meditation is little more than letting the nothingness of what is happening to you overtake you.

Boredom is resistance to that nothingness.