It’s a rare day that things in the office where I work are slow, but this week couldn’t be more dead. My boss is at the London Book Fair. Her assistant is “busy” re-naming files on our network drive. And I’ve incurred three centuries’ worth of reincarnation as a silverfish for the manuscript rejection letters I sent this morning alone.
Allow me to express this sentiment via YouTube:

Oh, the Buzzcocks. Old and still great.

But seriously. Here’s an article about the virtues of boredom in last month’s Boston Globe: The Joy of Boredom. exploring the “strong argument that boredom — so often parodied as a glassy-eyed drooling state of nothingness — is an essential human emotion that underlies art, literature, philosophy, science, and even love.” For people who meditate, none of this is really news, but it’s still fun to read about.
My favorite part, after a fabulous quote from Proust, sums it all up: “Marcel’s senses are recalibrated, his experiences deepened, and the very nature of memory begins to reveal itself. But it is only through the strenuous process of clearing his mind and concentrating that his thoughts begin to unfurl completely, immersing him in memory. Had Marcel been holding a silver clamshell phone in his hand instead of the delicately scalloped cookie, perhaps he could have quieted the boredom with a quick game of cellphone Tetris. And had Proust come of age with an iPhone in his hand and the expectation that his entire world fit in his pocket, he may never have written his grandiose novel.”
And here’s a short article about Dr. Richard Ralley, quoted in the Globe article above: In Defence of Boredom. Leading with a quote from the Buzzcocks song! 8)
Ah, boredom. Would that I could spend more time with thee.