I received two phone calls today from people very dear to me. Both retired senior citizens comfortably off and in reasonably good health.
The first phone call took about thirty minutes of catching up with each other on family matters, movies and books as well as some recent political developments. Very intellectual and very satisfying.
The second one started off with exchange of WhatsApp messages where my friend was asking me to blog about a subject on which I have limited knowledge and no interest. He decided to tease me for my humility in confessing my inability and we bantered for a while on the WhatsApp chat when he decided that it would be better to talk on the phone. The conversation was not as long as the earlier one but, started off by his using a common phrase here which loosely translates to “I am being hit with boredom”. My normal response would have been “Hit it back!” but, I refrained as it had been so long since I heard that phrase.
I can understand why my friend was bored. He is recovering from a surgical procedure and is not allowed to indulge in some of his favourite pastimes. This post however is not about him but, about me.
I am never bored. I have enough to keep me occupied and consider myself blessed when I am left to my own devices. Like, as I write this, I am all alone at home with just our dog for company and am thoroughly enjoying the solitude. I will finish this blog post, attend to some email and catch up with some Facebook posts. I will then get on with reading a fascinating book which I hope to finish reading by this evening. Edward Luce’s The Retreat Of Western Liberalism. I have read his earlier book on India, In Spite Of The Gods: The Strange Rise of Modern India and this new one is as fascinating as the earlier one was.
I get five newspapers every day and solve five crossword puzzles in them well before lunch time every day. On the days that I don’t get the newspapers due to public holidays, I am somewhat lost, but never bored. I simply use the time to read. I also subsribe to a number of weekly and monthly magazines and those plus the books that I buy mostly on kindle or from Amazon as hard copies are more than enough to keep me occupied.
I get a number of messages on WhatsApp as well as get some phone calls from friends and family. I regularly go to the movies and visit friends or, have them come over and so am quite occupied.
I also blog and visit a number of blogs and leave comments on them and so, don’t find any reason to complain of being bored.
A man said to the universe: “Sir I exist!” “However,” replied the universe, “The fact has not created in me a sense of obligation.”
~ Stephen Crane
It’s good that you’re not bored. Not having enough to do can be the bane of retired folks.
Me. Nope — not bored. Have way too much to do to be bored. If I don’t have enough to do, I can always daydream.
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I am yet to come across a blogger who is bored!
Yes, having eyes that work is a real blessing. But you would still have audio books, phone calls, visitors, etc.
I have friends with macular degeneration, and we’re now going to Santa Fe once a month to treat Andy. Fingers crossed that they can slow it down enough for him to keep driving up to the land for many more years.
Cheerful Monk recently posted..Choosing Happiness
A very dear friend alas no more suffered from MD during the last decade of his life but was never bored. I used to read for him and he was a great fan of my late wife who used to be in stitches with his wit. Till the very last, he lived a full life and never had enough time to do all that he wanted. Ranjan has a rakhi sister from his college days who is blind but the same goes for her too. I think that it is all in one’s mind.
A long as we still had our ears the path forward for us bloggers would be straightforward. It would be more challenging for someone like Andy who relies on his eyes for driving and working on his projects up on the land.
that will differently (wrong word) curb Andy’s life – if it should come to that… maybe it’s time for him to “learn” something else, maybe learn the art of the podcast – letting people all over know about his care and attention to reviving his little part of the wider forest…
I think my lack of boredom in life started with my little mother.
I remember saying as a kid to her that I was bored. her response was
“don’t you dare say you’re bored. this world is too full of wonderful things for you to ever feel bored!” and she was right. and that was way before the internet.
now one can find any number of fabulous things to see and learn about.
she is also probably responsible for my loving rain all my life. she loved the rain and thunder storms. (though she never got used to the tornados in this part of the country.)
when it rained I remember her always saying “it’s time to light the corners.”
and we would fix pop corn and sit by the windows and read or just watch the rain! it was so wonderful!
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I am not at all surprised. An adult like that in one’s formative years can make all the difference to one’s attitudes in later years. Mine was very inspiring too.
I’m rarely bored – I have a great many things, I love to do. There are things I do when I’m at a loose end, like household chores – but there can be days where I realise I’ve not a clean/dry teaspoon to use – meaning probably 4 days since i washed up some dishes!
Today, I shifted a few bits of furniture around in the living room, because I realised it was sometime earlier this year – I just put the new2me couch “just there” and I was tired of where it was placed. Since I spend a lot of time sitting on it…
Plus I was just looking out the front windows either at neighbours coming/going or if they weren’t there the tired/wonky fence that borders this place with the back half of another house…
So now I’m actually looking within my living/studio which is much more entertaining… (when I’ve finished sorting out a few more things)
I can’t think of any blogger who is bored! Can you?
I’m seldom bored either. I have plenty of things to occupy me, including housework, gardening, reading, listening to music, keeping up with the news, blogging and Facebooking. Boredom surely just indicates a lack of imagination and curiosity?
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I don’t quite know why people are bored. There are so many things to do particularly in today’s world of collapsed communication systems.
“I have enough to keep me occupied and consider myself blessed when I am left to my own devices.” A page out of my book, Rummuser. Ditto, ditto, ditto. I’m always looking for that space in my busy day when I can just listen to the silence, and “stand and stare”!
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Birds of a feather what?