Ah, Boredom!

What is boredom?  To be stuck in a time and place where nothing is happening, where you've seen it all and where you are disconnected from any possible interest in what is going on.  Time hangs heavy on the wage slave, paid by the hour.   For example retail on a slow day.  What do you do?   Your behavior is monitored.  You are to be on duty, chiefly, available lest anyone need you, to be attentive.  Or to give another example, to be the guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier.  The soldier is dead, and still will be dead once your shift is over.  What could you possibly think about while marching slowly to and fro?

You are somewhere you don't want to be.  You want to be somewhere you aren't.  Somehow you are here instead.  You have stopped believing that there is anything very rewarding about being where you are, except of course the little matter of being paid to do it.  Your behavior is constrained also by your job description.  You can't read a book, or talk to your friends.  You can't sit down and you can't sleep.

The essence of boredom is being stuck somewhere that is less than inspiring, is bereft of interest, holds no promise or hope for improvement.  There are usually good reasons one cannot leave the situation.  The difficulty of finding a new job, finding a new spouse, finding a new life.  The weight of everything you've done, everything you own, the weight of your whole miserable biography is crushing you.  Things are bad but they could be worse.  Excitement comes at a price, the real possibility of loss, of disruption, disaster.    Is this the best of all possible worlds?  In the words of Peggy Lee, is this all there is? 

As you get older you have fewer and fewer options.  Your past is prelude.  You are no longer viewed as a malleable collection of possibilities.  You are viewed as a rummage sale of consequences.  In a sense you are the same person you were 30 years ago, but instead of everything being easier with time, everything becomes more and more difficult.

There are two things that you might do:  (1) palliate the pain of boredom by making your situation somehow more interesting or (2) go do something else, something you think you might really want to do.