Bore-dumb

Boredom.

It recently occurred to me one reason why I do this thing that I do: boredom. I find myself going stir-crazy after 2 minutes of non-stimulation. I need sensory overload. I need flashing lights in all the colors of the world changing at the speed of…well, light. I need noises so abundant that my entire body vibrates with the voracity of a jet fighter flying at mach 2. I need my eyes spinning, jittering, bouncing 80 times a second that one day I will have to bob my head up and down like a bird just to see straight. Surround sound…how about surround vision? When’s that SV-TV going to be available to the consumer market? Imagine your TV viewing as if it were in an iMax theater…only with better quality and shows designed for that TV. They could incorporate the audience into the show…now that is interactive television.

What has fueled this onset of boredom in modern society? Efficiency, technology, sugar coated sugar dough? Mmm, donuts. Just take what we can do today in a fraction of the time it use to take the pre-computer age world:

-Filing taxes: No more writing onto forms, calculated dependents and deductions, rifling through receipts to see if you can write off the “spa treatment” you got on the business trip to Vegas.

-Video games: No more of that wasteful reading the rules for strat-o-matic baseball simulator (seriously? people still do this?), Risk, or Monopoly. Forget the wrist wrenching pain of dice rolling (you know, those little cube shaped things with dots signifying the numbers 1-6 on them? They’re still going with the dots aren’t they? These number things have been around for a while you know). Now we can use a controller to step up to the plate with our favorite steroid laden All-star and smack homers out of the authentic - computer generated - baseball stadiums. Who would have thought those days of Combat Games, Pitfall, or Baseball for the Atari 2600 would evolve into the sensory stimulating, virtual reality game-fest of today? Those old ‘board’ games could last for hours, now you can play 18 different video games in the same amount of time!

-Applying for…: Anything. Apply for school, apply for competitions, apply for authorization to buy supplies in mass quantities, “apply online now for your new low rate credit card”, no need to wait for that pesky post office mail to begin racking up massive debt.

-Break up: Uncomfortable with that time consuming and awkward “its not you, its me” speech every time you want to break up with that significant other? Well now do it online! E-mail, hire someone to do it for you, put in a classified add, post on your significant other’s website, IM the “Dear John” and consider yourself free and clear.

-Get your news: Wait for the morning paper? Why wait to read about that crazy Astronaut’s drive from Houston to Orlando? Get your info online, watch the pundits, talking heads, and her high school acquaintances psychoanalyze the situation from the comfort of your work desk. Although crazy Astronaut lady probably could have taken care of this all online, without having to drive non-stop along I-10 in diapers to meet the other woman at the airport….the AIRPORT, really? That one place in Orlando where the security personnel don’t look like Mickey Mouse and are probably more abundant than at the Magic Kingdom?

Just to name a few.

With all these technological advances, one wonders what did citizens in the pre-20th Century do in times of sheer, utter boredom. Sleep? Probably. Who has time for boredom when 18 hours of the day you are tilling the fields, pulling the weeds, harvesting the crops, grazing the livestock? Even when they got bored they didn’t do it right…next thing you know all the sheep are being attacked by a wolf and no one believes you.

So if you are still reading this, then that means you are really bored and I have done my part to help you through that. Now go find something productive to do…or find some other way to stimulate you senses with flashing colors, loud noises, and hair raising adrenaline. Then let me know what it is so I can beat back the boredom and monotony of work and everyday-ness.