Actually, my idea of boredom has little to do with wealthy surroundings. It’s about a certain mindset[10]. Perfect boredom is the enjoyment of the moment of stasis[11] that comes between slowing down and speeding up—like sitting at a traffic light for a particularly long time. It’s at the cusp of action, because however enjoyable it may be, boredom is really not a long-term aspiration.[12] It’s for an afternoon before a sociable evening. It marks that point in a holiday when you’ve shrugged off[13] all the concerns of work and home, explored the hotel and got used to the swimming pool, and everything has become totally familiar. “I’m bored” just pops into your mind one morning as you’re laying your towel over the sun lounger[14] before breakfast, and then you think “How lovely.” It’s about the stillness and familiarity of that precise moment before the anxiety about packing up and heading back to God-knows-what.
Like everyone, I’ve been bored in the way often linked with death, but that was mainly as a child, and as you get older you become more resilient[15] in dealing with it. As an adult, you can choose between luxuriating in your boredom or eliminating it by getting up and doing something.[16] The choice is yours.
As a child boredom is a bleak prospect[17]. It was my regular companion when my family stayed with my grandparents in Scotland for the summer holidays. Their house faced the sea, which meant that there was a rocky seashore to explore. But after five or six years of that it was beginning to pall[18]. There was a limit to how many times you could yell “I just saw something move in the water!” and run screaming from the water’s edge. There was also the fact that my sister was now grown up enough to find it demeaning to hang out with someone my age who wanted to play.[19] My parents and grandparents seemed delighted to sit and conduct endlessly dull conversations.
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