Day Thirteen - Boredom

 

By Virag Lappints on Pixels

Only boring people get bored?  Have you heard that before?  Many societies across the world and time do not have any of the stuff of our culture that occupies our time so much.  I think of people living by the seaside on remote islands, gazing out to sea for hours on end.  Or farm labourers coming in from a long day's toil in the fields.  A few people are able to use their creativity.  What about John Clare, inventing poems as he wandered his familiar field lines?  Many masterpieces will have been lost this way due to lack of paper.  But people need each other.  Entertainment is something created together.  

Isaac Newton wrote “If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants.”  

I say "The wonder and creativity of a community is dependent on a history of shoulders ."  

This is what Solomon is reputed to have said in Ecclesiastes Two.

The futility of Pleasure

I desired pleasure, to relax and enjoy an easy life,

With wine and good food, verdant gardens, comfortable houses, and beautiful friends.

People looked after me. I hired gifted musicians.

I enjoyed working hard to make it happen.

And I looked at all I had accomplished and thought ‘is this it?’

Of Wisdom and Foolishness

I thought ‘wisdom’ is the answer.

Wisdom is light, illuminating my way.

Foolishness is darkness, tumbling in ignorance.

But I discovered there is very little between them; they sit side by side.

So I came to hate life, and it’s conundrums that taunt me.

The futility of Work

I began to hate my work and to find it futile.

All I try to achieve is handed over to others;

I have no idea whether to the wise or fools.

All I’ve strived for may easily be lost.

So I value good food and drink,

I find fulfilment in the moment.

Simple pleasures, I realise, are a gift from the Creator;

Wisdom, knowledge, joy.

Apart from the Creator we have nothing.

Ignorant of this, people become wealthy;

And their wealth is taken from them.

This is inevitable.

PRAYER: May every day be meaningful.  May joy be with me today.  May all I meet share something of this meaning.