In Praise Of Boredom

Sean Moran
Jul 22, 2017 · 2 min read
If you need to do this for kicks, how do you cope with real life?

I spend my life lurching from one thing to the next, but every now and then, when I step outside the day-to-day, I get an overwhelming sense of how quickly time is passing. The last ten years or so is a blur. Before that, my life was inching towards its inevitable end at a bearable rate. Now it is hurtling forwards and the brakes have failed.

I realise that time passes quicker as you get older, but I think the other reason I feel this is because I have a high boredom threshold. I am never bored. I think I was bored once when I was eight, it was raining outside and it was one of those rubbish days when Blue Peter was on instead of Grange Hill. I hated Blue Peter.

Nowadays, boredom is history. As a stand-up comedian there is always something I can be doing, I can always write, I can email for gigs. This doesn’t mean I always do it of course. Being an expert procrastinator means I can find a thousand interesting things to do if there’s work to do. I don’t understand how anyone can be bored. There are loads of brilliant books to read, films to see. In my experience there are also YouTube ska documentaries and Wikipedia wormholes.

I like doing things. I like doing gigs, working out and meeting people. When I’m actually doing them. Sometimes though, the thought of doing these things fills me with dread. Most of the time I do them anyway and the majority of the time it’s fine. Maybe there’s a bit if anxiety in there, but I believe it’s mainly because of my low boredom threshold. It’s probably the reason why I’ve never done extreme sports. Why would you want to jump out of a plane when you’re comfortable spending half an hour staring at the ceiling? I’m not saying I would be against sampling the life of an adrenaline junkie, it’s just that I can get by lying down staring at the ceiling in a way that would have most people going out of their mind with boredom.

It’s good to be able to cope with boredom anyway. That’s why I feel sorry for the thrill seekers and the adrenaline junkies. If you need to get your kicks bungee jumping how do you cope with queuing at the supermarket checkout, sitting in traffic or waiting for your five year old to start listening to you when you’ve told him to go upstairs for a bath

Sean Moran

Comedian | Writer | Parent | Napper

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