The Opposite of Boredom is Meaning
Fernando De Haro - The opposite of boredom is not entertainment; it is meaning. The current crisis reveals a demand for meaning that was not so evident in the past.
At the end of June, a curious international conference will take place: the Sixth Boredom Conference—6th BOREDOM CONFERENCE. These meetings, mostly virtual, have been held for ten years, organized by the International Society for Boredom Studies. This is no joke. The society brings together philosophers, literary critics, sociologists, and therapists from around the world. Some of its specialists offer interesting insights into the world we live in—into the cycle of dissatisfaction that begins with unfulfilled desires and frustrated expectations, then moves on to fear, unease, and sometimes anger. Anger that, in turn, feeds populism, sovereignty, and many other “isms” that threaten democracy. And then it starts all over again with boredom.
One of the promoters of conferences on boredom is the Spanish philosopher Josefa Ros de Velasco. Her research has recently focused on health-related issues, but Velasco has also studied the problem from an anthropological point of view, explaining what she calls “functional boredom,” or the positive side of tedium. Velasco explains that “the opposite of boredom is not entertainment; it is meaning” (...) “boredom is an adaptive emotion that is essential to our evolution as a species, forcing us to introduce changes, to seek new ways of escaping situations that have become stale, to explore the unexplored.” Boredom drove us to develop language and tell stories. We are overcome by unease, and we set out in search of the new. The philosopher does not say so, but one could add: we cannot renounce what lies beyond ourselves; the unexplored is what lies beyond reason, what reason aspires to.
Velasco does not “idealize” boredom and realistically points out that the energy it generates is not always positive. But by understanding boredom as the spark that ignites the search for meaning, she offers a positive key to understanding the crisis we are immersed in as an opportunity. It is a more interesting approach and more in line with the reality of others who explain the malaise as a consequence of decadence and “old instincts”: “the lust for power, that insatiable monster that stands in the way of human salvation,” pride, and carnal, material temptation. This is the approach taken by Andrea Rizzi, one of the leading geostrategic analysts at the newspaper El País (not exactly conservative).
The positive assessment of unrest is precisely what is most surprising when reading the book Habitar nuestro tiempo, vivir sin miedo en la era de la incertidumbre (Editorial Almuzara), which is being presented this week in Madrid. The volume is a translation of a book published a few months ago by Rizzoli and is a collection of conversations between Charles Taylor, a great thinker; Rowan Williams, poet and leader of the Anglican Communion between 2002 and 2012; and Julián Carrón, theologian.
The book is particularly relevant for 21st-century in Americas: its authors invite us to value the circumstances in which we live as a favorable opportunity for the expression of true human nature. The current crisis reveals a demand for meaning that was not so evident in other times.
The book is especially relevant in a Spain where the left and the right, believers and agnostics, are often mired in a kind of lament for the “dark times” we are living in. The authors of this book consider that the disappearance of Christianity is a great opportunity—a vocation—which unites those within the group of believers and non-believers who are “seekers of meaning,” helping Christians to rediscover the nature of Christianity. Reading something like this in Spain is a breath of fresh air in the face of defensive temptations.
If Christianity aspires to “inhabit our time,” it must forget any form of clericalism and go out to meet those who are bored, offering a word, a life, “unarmed and disarming.”
#Boredom #Meaning
