MONDAY, 13 SEPTEMBER 2004
Boredom, and actions that compensate (and my English class on a Monday afternoon)
I am okay by 16:25: my mind is manageable; my apartment is clean; plans, old and new, interesting enough for a Monday.
Within half an hour with a group of seven-year-olds (who are not unreasonably noisy or rowdy), the boredom and the farce of everything I am trying to do absolutely overpower me. Within minutes, my thoughts are rushing down a variety of dark corridors: What is the point of everything? Where are we heading? Face the facts! Etcetera. Regular Monday afternoon, 16:30 to 18: 00 routine.
Then the thought came to me that one needs certain things. If you don’t get these things, you will either deteriorate physically and emotionally, or you will get bored, or both (depending on your particular situation, and of what specific needs we are talking about).
COMPENSATING ACTIONS can alleviate the adverse effects of the situation, but if these types of action cannot be taken, then it’s physical and/or emotional deterioration, or boredom and frustration, or all aforementioned.
This is how I can describe, for the umpteenth time, my hours at home on my own, and also the result of a lack of actions to compensate, on a Monday afternoon between 16:30 and 18:00.
What is the practical value of my idealism? What is my relationship with the world? What do I want my relationship with the world to be? What can my relationship with the world possibly be? What – and I mean this in all seriousness – is the meaning of life?
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