V. WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?

When I pitched my Ode, I thought that it would end here: I’d confess how I had performed the wallow for several years, out of a fear that if I did otherwise, I’d become a boring schmuck. I’d talk about how indulging my emotions became a habit wired in my brain—the more I practiced wallowing, the more my instinct to wallow grew. Everything came crashing down last summer: everything—simply existing in the world—felt like too much, too many strong emotions, too many tears. I feared that I would never stop crying—stop feeling so much—and that I would never be able to exist as a functional, level-headed person.

After several (hard) months, I chilled out. In my Ode, I planned to write that I have—at my wise ole age of almost-27—grown comfortable with phlegmatic states of mind; that I’ve come to value “thinking through” my emotions, and not simply indulging them. I’d write that being comfortable with being bored is good—it allows me genuine connection with friends, family, and Matt, and experiencing boredom and neutral states of mind is part of being human.

Following my Dramatic Night in Soho, I felt unsure about writing with such confidence. This idea that one can “know oneself” completely is bull. (It would be pretty boring if one could.) Sure, I certainly felt jealous and pissed off at Matt—but I wasn’t that enraged. When I had these emotions—jealousy, anger—I harnessed them to distract myself from my own boredom and fears surrounding feeling bored/boring, and indulged.

I’m trying not to be too hard on myself, since apparently not only is boredom normal and inevitable, but so is starting fights to dodge boredom. “Wars, pogroms, and persecutions have all been part of the flight from boredom; even quarrels with neighbors have been found better than nothing,” wrote Bertrand Russell. “Boredom is therefore a vital problem for the moralist, since at least half the sins of mankind are caused by fear of it.” That is an interesting—and nauseating—rabbit-hole to peer down: how much horror humanity creates in order to escape boredom. Though it’s worth recalling that, while humans may create the horrible (and the amusing) so to escape boredom, those who learn to sit with themselves and endure boredom are (according to Russell) better equipped to recognize wisdom, beauty, and “profound organic satisfactions.”

I’m not sure what I think about this separation between escaping and enduring boredom, or this idea that the more profound creations stem from the latter. Probably some good (and bad) comes from escape, and other good (and bad) comes from endurance; probably, things vary, depending on a lot; probably, it’s possible to escape and endure simultaneously; it’s a mixed bag, and no one really knows. That said, I do think that having anxiety over “being boring” is a miserable feeling—and, during that time when I’m sunk in this anxiety, my thoughts are “unproductive.” It would be better to just allow myself to feel “bored” or “blank”, without beating myself up over “being boring.”

That dramatic night, I stomped uptown and back to my apartment alone. Eventually, my emotions quieted down. The next day, I stayed quiet. I grew bored; I searched “boredom” on Brainpickings. I apologized to Matt, and talked to him, calmly, about my feelings. Thankfully, he understood, and accepted my apology. These days, I’m trying to remember to spend more nights alone, with my thoughts and non-thoughts alike. I’m remembering that respecting myself and appreciating the company of my own funny mind requires (like a relationship) patience and work, and that liking oneself is an ever-evolving process. So I’m trying to remember to stare out the window and to let my mind float. Some way or another, this “boredom” will surely pass—and, as I remember from childhood, if I don’t fret over the slow, meandering state of my mind—this boredom is pretty enjoyable—not boring at all. ♦