An occasional brute, I have found myself unable to tolerate complaints by fellow humans that they are 'bored'. Should a foolhardy subject complain of boredom within my radius, I would punish them with wayward if lavishly smug pronouncements that amounted to : It's All Your Own Fault, Shiftless Dotard, The World Is An Intriguing Place.
Due to a deft act of Karmic renovation, today, I too, find myself Bored.
This may be due, in part, to my - ahem - Sabbatical. (An instance that might be less politely read as a protracted period of low-to-no employment). The Busy are terminally Interested in everything. I, by conrtast, have a great deal of time at present that will not be adequately spak filled by domestic clutter. However, as one who is (a) incorrigibly vain and (b) has enough time to concoct more elaborate theories, I have Other Ideas.
I choose to blame The War On Terror for my boredom. Boredom is the by-product of congestion, confusion and doubt. Further, it can be engendered when there is no goal or meaning in site. So, as many of us concur: 'meaning' is the first casualty of a war fought on television. The conflict, bloody as it might become in the 'real', is reduced to a flat all-commercial-free nothing. The representation of the war says nothing about actual folks or events or catastrophe and much about television itself. So it reflects itself, its own medium, endlessly. And we can see and feel nothing beyond it.
All old electronic media behave in this fashion. That is, the only real reference is to the medium itself. Which is not really a problem if someone is, for example, burbling on about the benefits of ayurvedic soap and how it has improved Nicole Kidman's skin. Or whatever. I don't necessarily crave nor pay attention to that kind of bombardment because it isn't essential or fatal. Unlike war.
It's damn dangerous when we begin to trivialise the serious. And then it just gets boring.