GENIUS FORUMS

Boredom has to be caused by the backlash of ignoring one's conscience. I can't see it any other way.

I see it as an emotion that evolved in order to induce both physical and mental activity beneficial to the herd.

Boredom leads to inquisitiveness, which leads to knowledge, which in turn, at the group level, leads to an enhanced chance of survival.

Boredom has to be caused by the backlash of ignoring one's conscience.

In humans, the emotional pain in feeling the need to relieve boredom by selfish activities, rather than those benefical to the herd, may have advanced to such complexity, yes. We wouldn't have the concept of a conscience, without it being something that stemmed from retribution from the herd for selfish actions (and this is something we first began to "instinctualise" - repeated behavioural actions over many generations may become hard wired or instinctualised - as soon as our pre-human states had a sufficient degree of complexity).

Matt Gregory wrote:Boredom has to be caused by the backlash of ignoring one's conscience. I can't see it any other way.

Maybe that's why women never get bored because they never develop a conscience!

Maybe boredom evolved so we don't get too comfortable and complacent . . . to keep us in motion in order to stay alive.

Jamesh wrote:I see it as an emotion that evolved in order to induce both physical and mental activity beneficial to the herd.

You get bored because there is nothing happening - there is no drama. Drama often involves sex.

Boredom has to be caused by the backlash of ignoring one's conscience. I can't see it any other way.

Could you elaborate? I'm having difficulty interpreting that much abstraction all at once.

To give an example of my own boredom, I find that when I draw a picture, at a certain point in the drawing, I feel an overwhelming surge of boredom. Moments later, I approach the drawing somewhat differently, and now find it a lot easier to focus on, say, making the lines perfect. My hand is now synchronized to my eyes. The boredom is gone, replaced by a moodless state for the hour or two it takes until my attention finally wavers and I do something else.

I don't know where "ignoring my conscience" factors into an example like that. Am I missing something?

Dave,

DHodges wrote:You get bored because there is nothing happening - there is no drama. Drama often involves sex.

Yeah, good point. In fact, I think most of the boredom that I've experienced in my life has been caused by wanting sex (or "sexual emotions" might be a more accurate way of putting it) and not getting it.

But, and to answer Trevor too, I think there's an underlying moral sense that drives us to act and make certain actions more dramatic and exciting for us, and I think it's alright to call that our "conscience", but that's using that word in a broader sense than it's normally used for around here.

Around here people tend to tie it to consciousness and say that someone with an unstudied, undeveloped conscience has no conscience, but that leaves the question of what do we call the moral drive that everybody has whether it's the product of consciousness or not.

Anyway, this moral sense is what I'm talking about, and I think boredom has a subconscious connection to it. For example, when we want sex and can't get it and become bored, I think it's the result of feeling morally compelled to have sex, but since it ain't happenin' then we feel like a moral failure and it seems to me like boredom could be the emotion that comes from failing to live up to one of our innermost moral drives.

Boredom is the lack of the sublimation of will to power.

Why would that lead to boredom specifically rather than anger or depression?

Dan Rowden wrote:Boredom is the lack of the sublimation of will to power.

In that sense one could just as easily say that boredom is related to having an excess of will to power in the first place. This is why I think Nietzsche wrote one has yet to learn to be bored to the fullest. Or:

Nietzsche wrote:For thinkers and all sensitive spirits, boredom is that "windless calm" of the soul that precedes a happy voyage and cheerful winds. They have to bear it and must wait for its effect on them. Precisely this is what lesser natures cannot achieve by any means. - La gaya scienza 42 (a chapter worth a read as a whole).

The way I envision boredom in a more graphical way, is like the pencil becoming aware of the flatness and transparency of the sheet of paper and its ink blots compared to its own deeper and dimensional nature. Starting as a feeling, a physical, depression-like feeling, it creeps over us and draws us out.

Boredom and aniexty are usually an emotional denial-response to ‘what is”

A Good way to test yourself to your tolerance for ‘what is’ is to do absolutely nothing, do not occupy your mind with a single thing, and watch the anxiety and boredom emerge, watch the ‘thoughts’ that pop into your mind wanting you to do something.

It’s a difficult exercise. From my experience, the mind is more restless in the daytime, but it can fall into harmony with ‘what is’ or ‘stillness’ at night much easier. One just has be become aware or sensitive of everything around the body, in essence, the energy from the environment fills up your being, instead of the other way around, instead of you trying to use the environment to derive energy by pursuing constant experiences.

dan:

Boredom is the lack of the sublimation of will to power.

DHodges:

You get bored because there is nothing happening - there is no drama. Drama often involves sex.

resembles my own closely :

boredom is evidence of disease; you are going blind, deaf or are getting paralyzed.

DHodges wrote:You get bored because there is nothing happening - there is no drama. Drama often involves sex.

Bert wrote:boredom is evidence of disease; you are going blind, deaf or are getting paralyzed.

Some would say that it's the very drama that is blinding, deafening and paralyzing by its very nature. Life is suffering, that what imposes its will on us, violating - forming and deforming our experiences.

Boredom then could be seen as the craving of an addict without enough 'fix' to sustain him.

This leads to the well known, slightly mystical idea that what most call life is actually death and what most would call death, a mortal wound, is actually the doorway to knowing life in the fullest most complete way possible. It takes more than just ears and eyes to understand this paradox.

Some would say that it's the very drama that is blinding, deafening and paralyzing by its very nature.

yes, some would say that, apparently

Life is suffering, that what imposes its will on us, violating - forming and deforming our experiences.

yes, the price...

Boredom then could be seen as the craving of an addict without enough 'fix' to sustain him.

'being friends' is only the deflextion of a desire for a fuller Self.

This leads to the well known, slightly mystical idea that what most call life is actually death and what most would call death, a mortal wound, is actually the doorway to knowing life in the fullest most complete way possible. It takes more than just ears and eyes to understand this paradox.

what's the attempt?

I see boredom as nothing but lack of stimulation. A man can be happy in the woods doing virtually nothing but getting by, because he is in a stimulating environment. He is surrounded by active life, scents, tastes, sights... In a city your either socializing, doing work of some form, or killing time. Perhaps you read a good book, and even while your not reading, your minds a buzz with ideas and concepts the book birthed in you. These days most take stimulus from conflict, "there's something wrong and I know what it is, so were gonna argue", or more pettishly "thats me chair, get out..." I'm bored when I either have nothing to do, no one to do it with, or just doing the same thing. We crave difference and change, yet many of us are too lazy to pursue it, so were struck by boredom. I get bored from the same old. Unless it's something that just doesn't get old, like music, or sports. Your bored during the day to encourage you to get out and take more in, so your sub-conscious can keep busy. When you stop feeding your head, well it dies, and you get dimensia, you decay with age, not from time, but the same way an astronauts bones decay in zero gravity, they don't have to work, so they don't, and you loose it.

Alexander wrote:I see boredom as nothing but lack of stimulation. A man can be happy in the woods doing virtually nothing but getting by, because he is in a stimulating environment. He is surrounded by active life, scents, tastes, sights... In a city your either socializing, doing work of some form, or killing time. Perhaps you read a good book, and even while your not reading, your minds a buzz with ideas and concepts the book birthed in you. These days most take stimulus from conflict, "there's something wrong and I know what it is, so were gonna argue", or more pettishly "thats me chair, get out..." I'm bored when I either have nothing to do, no one to do it with, or just doing the same thing. We crave difference and change, yet many of us are too lazy to pursue it, so were struck by boredom. I get bored from the same old. Unless it's something that just doesn't get old, like music, or sports. Your bored during the day to encourage you to get out and take more in, so your sub-conscious can keep busy. When you stop feeding your head, well it dies, and you get dimensia, you decay with age, not from time, but the same way an astronauts bones decay in zero gravity, they don't have to work, so they don't, and you loose it.

Alexander, your main points as i see it :
- without stimulation from without, we easily get bankrupt of ideas.
- we die with the media getting poor.
- those of small desires will only bleed you.
we do not necessarily get bored because of this (except the last). because you can shut the door,darken the room etc. and you are still in the company of a host of familiars.
passion is pursued and obtained by passion.the nice stimulus.

boredom, determinist-style: the temporary suppression of stimulus systems

boredom, ontological-style: the temporary suspension of will

boredom, existential-style: the temporary avoidance of choice

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah. The super-ego...