Re: Boredom
Henry.Craft@deetya.gov.au wrote:
>
> Patrick Farrell wrote:
>
> >Is it me, or is the list not working?
>
> I think it's that the list has been strangely quiet for a while.
> (Strange? to me, anyways).
>
> Let me seek to reactivate it by asking if anyone has ideas about what is
> the structure of boredom.
>
> And I ask with a view to developing strategies on how not to be bored
> during long meetings etc.
>
> Henry
What an interesting question...I was thinking about that the other
day, in a meeting as a matter of fact. See the thing I've noticed
is that the times when I've been bored is that ...well hold on a second,
I had to take a break for a minute to get myself back to writing this
letter, I decided to get really bored and I started to think that even
bothering to reply to your question would be kind of stupid, because
I've done it before, I've written hundreds of emails before, in fact
life was pretty dull there for a minute as I thought about how
repetetive things in life are...and I get this voice in my head that
says..OH WHAT'S THE POINT IT'S ALL THE SAME ISN'T THERE ANYTHING NEW
TO DO? And unfortunately I seem to have built in a loop so that
whenever I start getting bored and ask a question like that in an
entirely different kind of voice, one that says, YEAH THERE ARE TONS
OF NEW THINGS TO DO! And then I start thinking about all the things
I've never noticed before like how are the meta-programs of the people
in this particular meeting interacting, and with so many possibilities,
and while noticing all the non-verbal behavior of everyone there and
how they are responding to each other...and then I start to think about
all the things I could do to make the meeting end, but by then I'm
having so much fun I don't know, who'd want to just end up back at my
desk when I've got a laboratory full of people, maybe you could think
of ways to get a promotion...or turn the meeting around so that it's
not boring and that's it's actually productive, and that might be a
great way to get a promotion, or it might not, you'd have to decide.
Oops sorry, people always complain that my messages are always just
one paragraph long...I dunno, maybe a key element of boredom is just
sorting only for sameness, or comparing present time to all the similar
situations in the past and noticing how much the same it is...That
wouldn't be so bad I suppose if you had really been having a great time
all those years. I usually just try to tune up my kinesthetics so I
feel great, and then I look around and see who else I can make feel
great. I mean if you can't use NLP to induce great states in other
people what's the point of it all?
I know that probably didn't answer your question, but man did I have
fun doing it!
Loren