On Boredom

The line between tranquility and boredom can be thin at times. Perhaps boredom is a tranquil state that is judged negatively. But the judgement came from somewhere so it seems unwise to just discard it.

In contemporary discourse-making boredom is framed to be a positive. It allows the mind to relax the argument goes and in these moments the mind sometimes finds solutions to problems that have been simmering in the background. There are also communities that deliberately reserve a day for doing nothing. In Germany a well-known concept is Ruhetag which states that Sunday is a day that should be free of work. In Judaism Saturday is reserved as a special day with Jews following the laws of Mozes choosing not to perform work or even travel or cook on Saturday.

In religious tradition this command to reflect and admonition to meet family can hardly be said to be the same to the psychological state of boredom. So perhaps boredom is involuntary. Boredom is a feeling that arises involuntarily and is deemed negatively.

Boredom can also be brilliant. When a college professor manages to induce a collective state of boredom-cum-peace when discussing classical works it is hard not to appreciate the virtuosity of form which said professor displays. Perhaps this is a personal experience since I recollect experiencing the same phenomenon when I was privileged to follow courses on calculus during my bachelors in business-information technology (yes it is really a pre-graduate program at University despite the name, see disclaimer on bottom)

The sheer complexity of the topic there made your brain go lucid except for that of the brightest students. The mentioned example thus shows what people might be able to recollect from personal experience that states of boredom can also arise in community. We can at least be thankful that we are there to be able to experience the state at all. For if this state is compared to the state of navigating busy traffic on the road while driving it seems that the state of nothingness which can be so tedious sometimes might not be so bad after all.

Ya Allah keep us safe in our travels please.

Disclaimer

The program was perfectly acceptable however the name just makes one associate with ather than a full-fletched academic program.

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