Boredom

A great many of my friends and associates, especially classmates and schoolmates in La Salle would readily admit that they are bored; hardly, however, would they also admit they are suffering from boredom – one of the most destructive of horrors that’s keeping our world devoid of tranquility, if not bereft of peace, beauty, and harmony behind social sanity.

In his Conquest of Happiness, Bertrand Russell wrote: “Boredom is essentially a thwarted desire for events, not necessarily pleasant ones, but just occurrences such as will enable the victim of ennui to know one day from another. The opposite of boredom, in a word, is not pleasure, but excitement.”

Indeed, boredom generates aggression and destruction. It is so easy to tell how in a variety of ways bored individuals express their boredom: faith in God has more to do with boredom than having faith in God. Alcohol consumption is a means to help forget boredom. Smoking, golfing, fishing, outings, movies, parties, watching boxing fights, sex orgies, business meetings to agree as to when will be the next meeting, traveling, political campaigns, picking a fight with one’s spouse, or against one’s children, not to mention praying the rosary, or doing the 14 ways of the cross on one’s knees in church, etc, have more to do with getting away from boredom than actually living the good and creative life – one inspired by love and guided by knowledge. Poch Suzara