On boredom

The last few days had been wonderfully boring -- everyday I woke up in the morning, glanced the newspaper, came to office, worked a few hours, read some mails, sent some mails, went back home, ate a bland dinner, read a few pages, tried to write a post, gave up, and fell asleep. Yes, this is pretty much what I did. As you can very well understand, even for a comatose person like me, this sort of routine can sometimes get on the nerves. No wonder, these days I appear somewhat lost, subdued, unsocial, gloomy, and aloof (it's a bit difficult to convince, but actually, I'm none of these!). And perhaps the worst thing is, I do not even seem to make any effort to appear otherwise -- I'm blissfully ignorant and happily ensconced in my boredom. Friends, when I tell them about my present condition, shake their heads in disbelief and mutter some words of consolation as if I'm a hopeless case. Well, for once, I do not really have anything to prove them wrong.

But boredom is a strange feeling, I've realized. I do get bored by this loneliness at times, but I can stand this boredom. What I really fear is the occasional boredom I feel in the company of people. I really feel terrible when I have to endure that. (Just for the record, I should say here that I always pride on my ability to endure the severest boredom. It usually takes a lot to bore me. Any lesser mortal, faced with the kind of nondescript life I live, would raise his/her hand and surrender to boredom. But not me, I've grown resistant over the years.)

Anyway, so I'm mildly shocked to find that what I was feeling for the last few days actually bordered on boredom. Maybe, I over-estimated myself, after all.

Whatever, a good dose of reading and I hope to recover soon. The problem is while books give us company and food for soul, they also make us acutely aware of our deepest feelings, loneliness and boredom included.

Sigh!