by I’m sure you’ve met them before — the people that do a thousand things yet have no meaning or magnitude attached to the learning in the experience. They live overwhelmed and without wonder.
Is wonder learned through experience?
Or is wonder only provided in the context of meaning?
I wonder how many people comprehend they are merely living throughout the day just to survive and are unable or unwilling to express any interest in learning or forging memory.
That sort of life must be tasteless and bland and incredibly painful in its lack of human humidity.
To open up the mind and the body to embed all experiences — good and bad — builds character and informs morality and consecrates values and that, I believe, is the purpose of finding meaning in the wonder of experience.
David!
what a great article! i think we help ourselves when we provide meaningful and constructive frameworks to our experiences. experiences alone can often be coloured by our emotional responses to them. and it can sometimes be misleading.
Excellent insight, Dananjay! Living a cogent life requires constant evaluation and perspective. Too often we get numbed by the demands of the modern world and we begin to just move through it from timepoint to timepoint and have no insight between the deadlines.
live in the moment but never forget the day.
Good advice, Anne! You never know when you won’t have another tomorrow.
David,
I think it’s a real conscious decision to live a life of wonderment and examination. It’s a stop and smell the roses sort of thing.
In today’s fast-paced world, it may require a great deal of thought and planning to create that kind of life for yourself.
I made a decision to get off the fast-track about five years ago and live a more thoughtful meaningful existence. And I hadn’t looked back.
Those who are completely immersed in career and accumulating wealth just don’t get it . . .
Donna —
You’re right we must actively choose wonderment over boredom. Boredom is simple. Wonderment takes lots of effort to find meaning.
I’m so glad you were able to find time to reflect and remove yourself from the dead-end fast track.
Isn’t saying one is bored an admission that one is not sufficiently aware of all the exciting things going on? Appreciation, gratitude, and compassion are attitudes I would embrace. I would excise the word “boredom” from my mental lexicon if I could do so.
This is my first posting here, David, and I thank you for such an excellent website. I got to you when googling on “Brandenn Bremmer,” and I especially appreciate that thread of yours (haven’t studied all of them yet).
—
Aloha ~~~ Ozzie Maland ~~~ San Diego
Welcome to Urban Semiotic, Ozzie!
I think “boredom” is an active choice because if you say you’re “bored” you know there’s something better you can, and should, be doing. I don’t understand the idea of being bored because I always have something yet to do even when I’ve finished everything. Entertaining your mind is an active task that takes training and dedication.
I agree with you David – 100%!
I agree “feeling bored” is a choice.
I feel amazed when I see people saying they are “bored”.
It sounds superfluous and shallow.
How come a human being can be “bored” when they can “think”!
Yes, Katha, yes! Boredom is an excuse for mental laziness! I know a supremely intelligent woman — good Indian family background, culture, values, and upbringing all that in perfection — and she has many educational degrees and she is busy and smart and she said that the job of her boyfriends and future husband is to “entertain her” so she’s never bored. She told me she is easily bored and the moment a man bores her, he’s out!
I sort of sat there staring at her wondering why she was placing the requirement for her entertainment on someone else? That seemed sort of ultimately un-smart to me. SMILE!
Interesting! and Yikes!!!
Yes, Katha! Men need to turn around and run!
Hi David,
As fas as my experience goes – there are two extremes regardless of the global boundaries and gender – those who want to be entertained always and dump the responsibility on others and there are those who want to be left alone even being in a mutually exclusive relationship.
The harmony is to find a balance.
“getting bored and waiting for others to rescue from that pit” or, “needing one’s space always in a relationship…” – doesn’t help.
Everybody needs to run away from them. SMILE!!!
Well said, Katha! You pinpointed the heart of the matter! It is always a challenge to learn new ways of communicating and “relationshaping.” I have friends who feel online friendships are less than in person friendships. As time and technology speed up and advance, they are beginning to see there is tremendous value in “virtual” friendships that are online only and don’t need the present-in-person-now to have great warmth and meaning.
Heh!
David, I was one of them!!!
Mind it – “was”… not anymore!!!
Heh! Watch those self-confessions, Katha! SMILE!
David,
With me it’s “what you see is what you get…without any hidden tag…” –
I am the way I am!
I know and love that about you, Katha! No pretensions. “Take me or leave me as I am.” Refreshing!
Yes David – if I despise anything from the core of my hearts is pretensions.
And I admire you for accepting me the way I am – very few people could do it!
Katha —
Really? You are one of the most delightful people I have ever met. You are always gracious and never nasty. You’ve never given me one instant of grief or trouble.
What’s your secret? WHAT ARE YOU HIDING?!! Smile!
Ha…ha…ha…
I am extremely short tempered David, and blunt, and have a habit of calling a spade a spade and brutally honest and tactless and arrogant and authoritative….and so on….
….but with age my anger management got better I guess.
One thing is for sure – I am never mean.
Now you know all the skeletons….
I’m surprised you are short tempered, Katha. Where does that come from? Blunt is a good thing — it saves time. SMILE! I have noted all these “defects” and will appropriately memorize them all! Ha!
Heh!
I am not sure David, but I am short tempered – I might not flare up but people can figure out a fuse gone off somewhere or a short circuit has happened…
The rest…well, I am a human being only!
I appreciate the warning, Katha! I will tread lightly from now on. SMILE!
When I was a child I got a list of things to do when you think you are bored and it numbered in the hundreds. I honestly do not remember the last time I was ever bored because to me boredom is a sign that a person does not recognize how extremely finite life is, and how valuable a single second is.
Yes, Gordon! As we love longer, and time compresses, we begin to see we only have seconds, no years, left to live and we begin the “packing it in” process of ultra-learning everything around us. It’s a delightful sign of knowing the end is nigh.
Please don’t!!!
That’s what makes you different from others…
I submit to your wishes, my dear Katha! SMILE!