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* If you are a dreamer, come in.
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer...
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in! Come in!
(Shel Silverstein)
April 04, 2006
Boredom
This post is inspired by (i.e. nicked from) my dear magical friend Chi, who herself is a whole other story for a whole other post.
That's not to say she bores me - far from it. (Can't say that. I have fear, you know. I fear the flipping faces of the Gemini.)
She and monassar just got me thinking about boredom. (Dig self out of self-dug grave, quick!)
Here's what she - Chi - well, technically, John Berryman - has to say about it:
Dream Song 14: Life, Friends is Boring
'Life, friends, is boring. We must not say so.
After all, the sky flashes, the great sea yearns,
we ourselves flash and yearn,
and moreover my mother told me as a boy
(repeatedly) "Ever to confess you're bored
means you have no
Inner Resources." I conclude now I have no
inner resources, because I am heavy bored.
Peoples bore me,
literature bores me, especially great literature,
Henry bores me, with his plights & gripes
as bad as achilles,
Who loves people and valiant art, which bores me.
And the tranquil hills, & gin, look like a drag
and somehow a dog
has taken itself & its tail considerably away
into mountains or sea or sky, leaving
behind me, wag.'
Wendy Cope has a slightly different take on the matter. I can't decide whether it's a more positive or a more negative one.
Being Boring
"May you live in interesting times." - Chinese curse
'If you ask me 'What's new?', I have nothing to sayExcept that the garden is growing.
I had a slight cold but it's better today.
I'm content with the way things are going.
Yes, he is the same as he usually is,
Still eating and sleeping and snoring.
I get on with my work. He gets on with his.
I know this is all very boring.
There was drama enough in my turbulent past:
Tears and passion-I've used up a tankful.
No news is good news, and long may it last,
If nothing much happens, I'm thankful.
A happier cabbage you never did see,
My vegetable spirits are soaring.
If you're after excitement, steer well clear of me.
I want to go on being boring.
I don't go to parties. Well, what are they for,
If you don't need to find a new lover?
You drink and you listen and drink a bit more
And you take the next day to recover.
Someone to stay home with was all my desire
And, now that I've found a safe mooring,
I've just one ambition in life: I aspire
To go on and on being boring.'
Whose vision terrifies you more? Vote!
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i like the second one better. i'm not bored often. i guess i have inner resources (and a lot of msn friends) :)
For thee, Wee..
A blade of grass
You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.
I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.
You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.
You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,
And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.
—Brian Patten
A blade of grass
You ask for a poem.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You say it is not good enough.
You ask for a poem.
I say this blade of grass will do.
It has dressed itself in frost,
It is more immediate
Than any image of my making.
You say it is not a poem,
It is a blade of grass and grass
Is not quite good enough.
I offer you a blade of grass.
You are indignant.
You say it is too easy to offer grass.
It is absurd.
Anyone can offer a blade of grass.
You ask for a poem.
And so I write you a tragedy about
How a blade of grass
Becomes more and more difficult to offer,
And about how as you grow older
A blade of grass
Becomes more difficult to accept.
—Brian Patten
Why did you reform from cynicism? My view is, once you see things a certain way, you can't un-see them.
By the way, the link to my blog is outdated, since I changed the name. Here it is if you want to update it:
http://ramblefishing.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_ramblefishing_archive.html#114400714658531312
Funny thing is, I can't remember feeling the way I did in all those posts about my depression. That's the problem with manic-depression: when you're on top, you forget the lessons of being down and vice versa.
By the way, the link to my blog is outdated, since I changed the name. Here it is if you want to update it:
http://ramblefishing.blogspot.com/2006_04_01_ramblefishing_archive.html#114400714658531312
Funny thing is, I can't remember feeling the way I did in all those posts about my depression. That's the problem with manic-depression: when you're on top, you forget the lessons of being down and vice versa.
It's not so much about 'un-seeing'. Things are never quite so on-click-off, are they? I'm sure you'll agree with me that you never simply 'see' something then close shop - nothing can be 'fully' seen, understood or experienced. You're always gathering information about more or less the same things, hopefully as long as you live. Experiences like travel, reading, getting to know people intimately, drumming your fingers on your kitchen table to see if that line of ants will jump expand your perspective, constantly adding to and altering "the way you see things", n'est-ce pas? Akeed this is all elementary to you, my dear Watson.
And in this vein, one of my favorite e.e.cummings poems:
'my mind is
a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and
taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and
chipping with sharp fatal tools
in an agony of sensual chisels i perform squirms of
chrome and execute strides of cobalt
nevertheless i
feel that i cleverly am being altered that i slightly am
becoming something a little different, in fact
myself'
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And in this vein, one of my favorite e.e.cummings poems:
'my mind is
a big hunk of irrevocable nothing which touch and
taste and smell and hearing and sight keep hitting and
chipping with sharp fatal tools
in an agony of sensual chisels i perform squirms of
chrome and execute strides of cobalt
nevertheless i
feel that i cleverly am being altered that i slightly am
becoming something a little different, in fact
myself'
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