I look at the 40-odd faces sitting in front of me. Large, unshaven young men fidgeting in their seats, glancing furtively at their mobile phones, scratching their beards or their crotches and waiting to be saved by the bell, so that they can all get up and go. These are the men, India’s finest (?), who will one day command high tech merchant ships of all kinds and sizes worldwide. My heart sinks at the thought. But I soldier on, because that is why I am here, taking a class at a maritime institute in south Delhi to help these young men pass their Merchant Navy promotion exams and go up the ladder to a higher rank in due course when they sail again. I try to keep their attention from wandering by tossing questions at them, relating a personal anecdote, dictating a numerical for them to solve—whatever it takes. But it’s a warm lazy late afternoon and I’m fighting a losing battle. A fleeting thought crosses my mind—why did I sign up for this? What was I thinking?
Image Source: pixabay.com
Was it to give something back to this noble profession? Nah! Was it to earn a little pocket money? Maybe, a little. I’ll tell you the main reason. It was the fear of getting bored. The rest of my life lies before me, and the thought of doing nothing at all with it worries the hell out of me. I don’t want to be bored. Ever. I want to be pleasantly occupied every day of my life. Writing stories or non-fiction or having a regular blog aren’t enough for me, apparently. Am I insane? Possibly. I’ve always been restless and hyperactive from childhood. Boredom is anathema to me.
Trust me, I am not alone. We live in a culture that seems obsessed with eradicating boredom. What is social media if not a means to do so? Yet by surfing the Net to hop from one site to another, reading something half way (like this blog) and then moving on, barely glancing at some posts on Facebook or Insta but clicking ‘Like’ anyway….we’re still bored, aren’t we? In the same way, we flit from channel to channel on TV or episode to episode on OTT….we’re not idle, we’re bored. There is a difference.
Idleness is a pleasant state of mind, a joyful solitude. You’re avoiding work, but you’re enjoying watching the fleecy clouds moving slowly across the clear, blue sky. Or you’re relishing the steaming mug of coffee beside you while the day stretches ahead with not a minute filled. Perfect scenarios for creative thoughts to enter your head. Boredom is different—you’re feeling tired, irritable and unoccupied. You’re not enjoying what you’re currently doing. It’s not a pleasant state of mind.
Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) defined boredom as ‘a sense of emptiness, not as an absence of stimulation but as an absence of meaning.’ That idea explains why it’s possible, today more than ever, to be over stimulated but existentially bored. Kierkegaard also illuminated our modern cult of productivity and our pursuit of ‘busyness’ as a hedge against that dreaded disease of boredom. Unbelievable—in the 19th century, he predicted life as it is today! ‘Of all ridiculous things the most ridiculous seems to me, is to be busy,’ he added. He scoffed at the culture of busy-as-a-badge-of-honour, the culture we have today. A mind of such timeless insight into the human soul!
Boredom is the root of all evil, many believe. We all know the proverb ‘Idleness is the Devil’s workshop.’ I think the word ‘boredom’ should replace the word ‘Idleness.’ Take children for example. As long as they’re having a good time, they are generally good. But when they start getting bored, they become unmanageable even when they’re playing. Have you noticed this?
So how do we fight boredom? We get busy. Or at least pretend to be. At a party, when you meet someone for the first time, the conversation sooner or later comes around to ‘So…what do you do?’ Does anybody reply ‘Nothing!’ even if that happens to be true? Rarely. We wear our ‘busyness’ as a badge of pride. We are Somebody because we’re busy, see? Our time is precious to us.
‘How are you?’
‘Busy,man.’ Or ‘fine, but busy. How are you?’ How dare we admit we have nothing to do!
Is it healthy to be busy all the time? Do you feel proud to be ‘busy’? Does being busy make you happy? I have mixed feelings about this.
On the one hand, recent research shows that keeping busy doing anything makes us a whole lot happier than we would have been doing nothing. Just sitting around, bored and inert, is a recipe for misery. Why does being busy feel good? This may be influenced by the fact that when we complete tasks, our brain releases the pleasure hormone dopamine, which makes us feel good. (If any of you read my blog ‘The Little Notebook’ posted 3 months ago, I had referred to the satisfaction gained and the mental pressure released by completing the tasks in our To Do Lists one by one.)
Speaking for myself, working post retirement, though part-time, has raised my self esteem—the fact that I was selected over others feels good. Earning a little money for one’s work feels even better. Working at a job will hopefully prevent my mind and body from going to seed for a little longer. But the downside is that I am getting precious little time to do the things I really want to do. I’m preparing for each and every lesson, stuff I’d studied 45 years ago, and it’s not fun. I have to study for a few hours daily—2~3 days for a 2 hour lecture. I know I need to be happily busy, but haven’t yet found the balance.
On the other hand, being busy doesn’t necessarily mean being productive. There is an unwritten law at workplaces in both public and private sectors that being seen to be busy is almost as important as being actually busy. Otherwise, we won’t get noticed for promotion. Leaving for home before the boss is a no-no. However, there is a lot of evidence to suggest that we humans have a limit of 3~4 hours a day of intensive, focused work before we burn out. This is capped even lower if we aren’t sleeping 7~8 hours, eating well, exercising or resting properly outside of work hours. So shouldn’t we stop being busy all the time, since we’re not being productive for more than, say, 4 hours in a day?
Which brings me back to my original question. Did I take on too much by signing up for this teaching assignment? Will all this studying take its toll on me? Will it leave me little time to pursue more pleasurable activities? Only Time will tell.
But what do you think? Is being busy in general good or bad? Do comment.
Beetashok Chatterjee is the author of ‘Driftwood’, a collection of stories about Life at Sea and ‘The People Tree’, another collection of stories about ordinary people with extraordinary experiences. A retired merchant ship’s captain by profession, this old sea dog lives in New Delhi with his memories of living more than 40 years on the waves.
His books are available on Amazon. Click here.
Comments