Inward bound : exploring the geography of your emotions 0553353888, 0987654321

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NEW YORK

TIMES BESTSELLING

AUTHOR OF

FIRE IN THE BELLY

EXPLORING

THE GEOGRAPHY OF YOUR EMOTIONS

(Originally published as

What to Do When YouVe

Bored and

Blue)

Praise for

FIRE IN

Sam Keen and his bestselling book

THE BELLY: ON BEING A MAN

"Sam Keen

is

one of the most

thinkers of our time.

I

creative,

profound

personally learned

books. He brings to kind of practical wisdom that should help both men and women." —John Bradshaw, author o^ Homecoming

and benefited immensely from the men's

movement

a

his

new

book taught me things I didn't know, thawed out some feelings that had been frozen and made me remember things thought wanted to forget. The growing men's movement has added a voice and a book that captures the problems of being male and

"This

I

I

the promises of manhood achieved.

want

it

I

didn't

to end."

^ohn Lee, author o^ At My Fathers

Wedding

and The Flying Boy "An important book, beautifully written." The Houston Post

—

and stirring... [Keen] has given can help us to remythologize order to develop new masculinities for

Fresh, vital, provocative,

us a

book

masculinity in

that

the 21st century."

— Shepherd Bliss

INWARD BOUND

Also

by

Sam Keen

Fire in the Belly

Your Mythic Journey (with

Anne Valley- Fox)

To a Dancing God Faces oj the

Enemy

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INWARD BOUND EXPLORING THE GEOGRAPHY

OF YOUR EMOTIONS

Sam Keen

•^ Bantam Books New York

Toronto

London

Sydney

Auckland

INWARD BOUND A Bantam Book

published by arrangement with the author

/

PRINTING HISTORY Originally published as What To

Widen Books

Do When

You're Bored and Blue

edition published 1980

Bantam edition /June 1992 Grateful

The

acknowledgment

is

made

for permission to reprint the following:

Social Readjustment Rating Scale

is

reprinted with permission from

T H, and Rahe, R H Copyright © 1967, Pergamon Press pic Excerpt from The Myth oj Freedom by Chogyam Trungpa Copyright © 1976 by Chogyam Trungpa Reprinted by arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc 300 Massachusetts Avenue, Boston, 021 15.

Journal oj Psychosomatic Research,

11,

Holmes, ,

,

MA

All rights reserved.

Copyright

©

by Sam Keen

1980, 1992

Book design by Terry Karydes.

No

part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher For information address: Bantam Books. in

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Sam

Keen,

Inward bound p

:

exploring the geography of your emotions

/

Sam Keen

cm

Rev ed of What

to

do when you're bored and blue 1980

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-553-35388-8 1. Boredom 2 Depression, Mental you're bored and blue

BF575B67K43 158'

II

I.

Keen, Sam.

What

to

do when

Title

1992

1—dc20

91-45215

CIP Published simultaneously

in

the United States and

Canada

Bantam Books are published by Bantam Books, a division of Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group, Inc Its trademark, consisting of the words "Bantam Books" and the portrayal of a rooster, is Registered in US Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries Marca Registrada Bantam Books, 666 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10103

PRINTED

IN

THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

FFG

0987654321

1

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION:

Part

No

RaINBOW WITHOUT BlUES

vii

Boredom, Bums, and Blues:

I

The Geography of Night Country

1

2

The Boredom Epidemic

A

3

Short History of the Blues

and the Noontide

Demon

16

and Hiders

36

3

Life-styles: Runners, Fighters,

4

A Map

5

Fatigue:

6

Simple Boredom: Monotony

59

7

Chronic Boredom

80

8

The Deepening

for

42

Psychonauts

The

Personal Energy Crisis

Part

48

Darkness: Depression and Apathy

II

The Whole-some

102

Life

115

1

The Upward Spiral: A Preview The Joyful Art of Doing Nothing Breakout: Beyond Guilt and Shame The Renewal of Imagination and Desire

12

Feeling Alive: Unfreezing E-motions

143

13

Risk Taking

160

9 10

14

From Sex

15

The

to Intimacy

Politics of

Depression and F-Jope

1

17

127 136

178

198

Notes

220

Index

223

INTRODUCTION

NO RAINBOW WITHOUT

As

early as

I

can remember

I

my life to be a rainbow No gray, brown, or shades

wanted

vivid experiences All technicolor. night.

I

wanted

rust.

Even

and

to taste, touch,

with the kaleidoscope of

human

possibilities. Better to

—Keen—suggested

my name

explorer, always pushing the limits.

and

I

honed

my

anyone who seemed prematurely

create a lean

body

that

was

at

rode motorcycles.

ladder (Ph.D. and security 1

moved

1

full

wanted to be

My

1

and

my

a perpetual

mind was sharp and

satisfied.

1

flung at

Twenty-five years

in

motion.

wrestled,

felt

I

the need to

climbed mountains,

After ascending the

had earned and became I

burn than

my DNA

professorship with tenure),

to California so

of

began running, determined to

1

home

be near the edge of danger skin-dived,

1

that

doubts into questions that

before jogging was invented

of

try everything, to stuff myself

destiny was to be on the cutting edge

restless,

BLUES

1

academic

abandoned the

a free-lance lecturer

and

writer.

could immerse myself in the happen-

INTRODUCTION

via ings of the late 1960s

—

revolution for the hell of

it,

encounter

groups, psychedelic consciousness, sensory awareness, etc.

determined that midlife was not going to catch

and bovine. At the

time,

content" she would

know

Give

spirit.

me

Needless to

1

1

my

I

was not

My

said: 'just

Sagittarius with his

moon

and

air

was

totally

into darkness

..."

few

unprepared when

A

that

fire,

am

my

not enough earth and

nodded

I

attributed

I

heads

their

what we would expect from in

"I

was

ever said

was exciting but exhausting to be

it

genes, driving curiosity, and a lust for 1

I

death.

astrologically oriented friends

knowingly and

if

turning drab

comfortable person. In moments of

a

ambience Too much

water

me

intensity or give

say,

wife that

me

had squelched the flame

candor friends would hint that in

my

told

was

1

it all

double

a

to Scottish

life.

crashed, burned,

and plunged

divorce after seventeen years of marriage and a

frantic years of trying to

be

a carefree

me

bachelor landed

in

the middle of what medieval mystics described as "the dark night

and modern psychologists (with

of the soul"

less

poetry and

soul) prefer to call "depression" or "midlife crisis." Since

in The Passionate Life

repeat the story here. Suffice

it

depression began to disappear pain and

became

and

I

fatigue,

life.

1

I

my

began to study the differences

boredom, depression,

my

in

grief, despair, etc.

being an objective witness to the

emotions,

I

began to observe

how

1

to maintain a high level of dramatic intensity

was so addicted to I

ceased running from

the geography of

would do anything

my

I

make up

changing topography of

in

not

between the nu-

became more expert

matter whether

will

I

interested in discriminating

the night country of the psyche.

As

in Fire in the Belly,

to say that the obscure ache of

when

ances of the "negative" emotions that

between

less

have

my personal demons and

written about the process of confronting

beginning again

1

was

in

intensity that

it

didn't

seem

to

the pits or the heights so long as

something extreme was happening Facing challenges, pushing

INTRODUCTION

my mind

ix

and body to the point of exhaustion by excessive work

or play, seemed better than settling into middle-class tranquillity.

One day

found myself

I

my

sitting in

room, looking

living

the waves in the ocean, and being gently bored

me

of anything that really excited

or anything

wasn't deeply depressed, simply captured

and

ate

natural impulse

something

—

project, pick a fight with

Instead

I

my

wife.

call

quietly

sit

Lo and behold,

wanted

I

inertia.

up

I

action.

Do

a friend, start a

new

—

me

for

and study the contours of

did nothing

1

my boredom

discovered that the monster of

I

to do.

My immedi-

Anything to escape the void.

did something highly unusual

other than

couldn't think

1

was to force myself into

go to the movies,

eat,

by

at

boredom had I

spent a lifetime running to avoid was more interesting than terrible Benign,

As

I

allowed

my

even

from

friendly, a respite

metabolism to slow

sensations of ebb tide. Lying fallow

down

my

1

frantic busyness.

learned to savor the

re-collected

I

my

did a

life,

kind of inventory of the satisfactions and dissatisfactions, and

began to ask myself what before

I

became

previously

wanted

I

in

the future.

wasn't long

a connoisseur of that range of "blue" feelings

lumped together under the name

my

slowed down,

It

imagination began to blossom and

A

sprung from exhausted ground.

I

of "boredom."

new

had As

I

desires

wealth of feelings sprouted

where before there was only willpower and overdrive. Gradually,

theme

in

I

embrace the

a

common

discover beauty only

when we

began to experience the promise that

myth and beast.

folklore

—we

Where we

gold Beneath the

stumble and

reject

becomes the cornerstone The

trash.

Authentic happiness

ourselves

to

is

experience the

including boredom,

fear, grief,

Increasingly, people within

treasure

range of

anger,

and

what we

we

find the

stone the builders

only possible full

there

fall,

The

fault lies the virtue

is

is

hidden

when we human

in the

allow

emotions,

despair.

self-servingly call "the

developed" nations of the world have become addicted to highly

INTRODUCTION

X consumptive

of

styles

dependent on constantly

that are

life

We

stimulated nervous systems and economies. busy.

As the most

now working

men and women

"successful"

fifty-

and sixty-hour weeks,

that as recently as the 1960s sociologists revolution.

The problem

would have Instead

1

we have become valuable

experience a downturn,

we

is

note

computer does not contain

My

A

intrin-

The moment we

"progress."

and

try to find

ways to

to have completely lost the

wisdom

we

should

and celebrate one day each week and allow the land to (I

we

Type

something

that led the leaders of biblical times to decree that

every seventh year.

a leisure

twenty-hour workweek.

fear depression

We seem

stimulate "growth."

remember

were predicting

idea that there

change and

in

our society are

nation of speed freaks.

a

hooked on the

in

ironic to

it is

990s was supposed to be that

difficulty adjusting to the

personalities, sically

of the

are busy, busy,

in

passing that

Word

lie

rest

fallow

Finder on

my

"fallow.")

encounter with boredom and exploration of the spectrum

of blue emotions convinced

me

and

that emotional

wholeness requires a psychological sabbath

—

a time

spiritual

and place of

disengagement. Todays paper brings word that Dr. Franz Halberg of the University of Minnesota's Chronobiological Laboratories

is

convinced by empirical evidence that human beings are genetically

programmed

Times, 9/8/91, p.

15

for seven-day )

It

has taken

rhythmic cycles. (The New York

me

a

long time to discover the

obvious: constant activity and the quest for excitement

exhaust the energies necessary for enjoyment of a

There are several reasons

I

expedition to the center of the psyche.

grows

healed by

septic,

full life.

have chosen boredom as the

Ariadne's thread that can best guide us

festers,

may

and contributes

on an inward-bound

Any

repressed emotion

to a dis-ease that can only

be

allowing the forbidden feeling into awareness.

We can't

we have denied

Further-

recover an emotion whose existence

more, the realm of emotion

(like a nation)

"cannot long exist

INTRODUCTION half-slave in

and

bondage,

xi

half-free."

all

When we keep a whole class of emotions

other emotions will suffer Boredom

When

extroverted and activity -addicted culture

boredom,

library to study the literature of

Depression and identity is

scarcely

crises are

mentioned by

nobody has

suffered

modem

boredom

problem of mankind? For suffering

Then

1

first

that

grief, guilt

like

"in"

—had

the debutante

Lucky

"

quenter of treasure

wondered

1

all

who came

thrift

when

I

a neglected

in

saw one.

out

"all

the

a

a

former age.

fullness

good

is

I

the

1

When

—anger and felt a little

1

season and couldn't diseases

had been a fre-

knew an overlooked

choose the path that begins with undiagnosed dis-ease from which is

readily available

Fortunately for humankind, the road to hell is

had been

1

our time

late in the

"normal" people suffer and the cure

to heaven

be that

and unexplored

been well explored,

shops and swap meets,

it

it

nobody wanted boredom Being

for me,

boredom because

highway

if

belonged to

emotions

find a cause to support because

taken

Could

psychologists.

a while

and shame

went to the

I

found there was none.

1

was the key to recovery of emotional

discovered that the

broad. There

is

is

narrow and the

a single path to sickness

thousand ways to health. All you have to do to get worse

keep narrowing your horizons, your

arteries,

all

you have

to

do

is

and is

to

your mind, your

enthusiasms, your community, your compassion. better

our

since Pascal called ennui the major

had stumbled on

I

in

popular maladies, but boredom

a disease like leprosy that

realized

emotion I

from

taboo

is

And

to get

open up to the multitudinous wonders

and healing balms within, without, and around.

Start

unwinding

the tangled string of your dis-ease and knots (the nots) in your spirit will loosen.

Many

people never get started on the inward-bound journey

because they wake up one day realizing they are emotionally

poor and demand to be made emotionally

When we

discover our dis-ease

we

naturally

rich immediately.

want

instant cures.

'

INTRODUCTION

xii

But the psyche doesn't work like

that.

When we

have been long

addicted to alcohol, dmgs, work, bad relationships,

etc.,

cannot immediately transcend our emotionally stunted

There

are

spirit. It

no authentic

lives.

rags-to-riches stories in the realm of the

takes time to explore

we have

we

and recover the

full

range of feelings

spent years denying and ignoring. In developing emo-

tional literacy,

we must

begin with abc before

we

can reach xyz.

Begin where you are rather than where you would

like to be.

Real spiritual journeys begin in the mud, the desert, the swamp,

the wasteland, not in the seventh heaven feeling,

To

recover fullness of

begin with the emptiness of feeling Begin by exploring

numbness, boredom, confusion, ambivalence, and depression the gray, dappled, and blue emotions

They

will lead

life,

where you

find bursting golden buds, upspringing green,

and royal

red-hot anger and searing grief to the center of will

you through

purple

The

best

experience the

need only

way

full

to a technicolor

life is

the willingness to

spectrum. In the beginning of the journey you

trust that there are

no rainbows without

blues.

PART 1

BOREDOM, BLAHS,

AND BLUES: THE GEOGRAPHY OF NIGHT COUNTRY

CHAPTER

1

THE BOREDOM EPIDEMIC

Boredom

is

our number one social disease.

The

epidemic proportions

world of the

mall, the

Unfortunately, to

be

more we

boredom

a minor-league

closer

is

we

Its

growing

in

get to the prepackaged

are engulfed

not dramatic

by psychic smog.

like cancer.

It

appears

demon, gray and anonymous. There

is

no

Anti-Boredom Week, no Crusade Against Tedium, no Boredom

Anonymous, no Foundation

for the Elimination of

Monotony. But

the amorphous blob creeps over our land like a giant fungus in a

grade-B science fiction movie.

asms and destroys our dreams.

comer plague

We

It

It

devours our innocent enthusi-

insinuates itself into

of our lives that has been prepared is

SUFFER

mostly invisible because

it

by

any ho-hum

fatigue

And

the

paralyzes our powers of

MORE FROM A VACUUM THAN A THORN

IN

THE

FLESH.

INWARD BOUND

4 perception even as

from

we

that

it

atmosphere of

The

consider

modem

fish doesn't

many

invades our psyches. So

it

normal,

it

of us suffer

of the

part

inevitable

life.

know it is swimming in water.

We have learned

to accept tedious jobs, depressing cities, deadly bureaucracies, the

and hopeless

television wasteland,

of sap and

are.

Lively people,

few

things, are rare as

full

Shaker

way

politics as just the

sass,

furniture.

Wisdom

become an

has

men and

antique virtue, to be studied in the tintypes of great

women

of former ages.

And

wonder, which ancient philosophers

celebrated as the aim and reward of a

makes the cover of

The space.

The

blahs have us.

Some vampire

—

ening,

is

Sisyphus strain

quietly sucking

we

never

disease from inner

away the

"inspired

is it

a natural part of

we don't notice our dis-ease,

die "not with a

How

life,

lifeblood of our

by

a god")

Most

"

and

fright-

allow our vitality to ebb away with scarcely a protest.

society that

And

entheos,

The

that spirit that former ages called "the soul

Boredom may become such ical

good human

Rolling Stone or Newsweek.

enthusiasm (from the Greek

hope

things

content with simplicity and

bang but

a

modem

technolog-

or accept

it

passively.

whimper."

with you?

Perhaps you wake up one moming, and for no particular reason it is is

February

your

soul. Blue

Monday. The

is

out.

Nothing

except

away from your

life

Only

a littered line of

memories

the shore to mark the receding tide of your

What

tide

mud flats. There isn't much pain, just a great and emptiness. And restlessness. The excitement has ebbed

visible

aching

in

is

is left

passion.

along

You think

the most important thing that hasn't happened?

THE

BOREDOM

5

EPIDEMIC

about your job, your marriage, the vacation you are going to take in

—

August

everything seems stale and tasteless Nothing matters

much You have no burning dreams You go through

outrage

without feeling Same old

When

did you lose

Or maybe children

the

anymore You

hard to remember.

it? It is

boredom began the week

tried to

Not even

by the numbers,

rat race

for college

left

or lively hopes

the day automatically,

retired or the

nobody needed you

suddenly,

and,

you

after

your days with hobbies, but time hung

fill

heavy You did make-work around the house, joined

when you

played golf three days a week But

a club,

weren't busy, that

nameless sadness came over you and the future seemed to stretch before you like a

sterile desert.

Or maybe you work the three-to-eleven

some

seniority,

at Electric

shift.

Hose and Rubber Company,

You've been there seven years and have

but you are

been getting you down

still

young

Lately the

monotony has

After cutting and bundling

12,000

Chevrolet heater hoses, or watching an extruder squeeze out an endless

ribbon

deadened Maybe depressed, so

polyvinyl

of

it's

much

Or maybe you

just

at a

Like

is

much

not

to do.

Or maybe you

a

good

To

BE

What

will

will turn

up

feels

feel

so

hall.

the same old

it's

Eight 45-minute

prison.

your

At school

periods

A curriculum and teachers tell you

own

good.

And

unemployed You know

but you can't help feeling low about yourself. ahead.

why do you

after school, there

So you hang out and smoke

are

spirit

dead end?

including lunch and study learn for

your

pipe,

job fatigue. But then

are in teenage limbo

thing every day

what you must

chloride

you do? Read the in the classifieds.

paper.

Then

a joint

it's

or two.

not your

fault,

The day stretches Maybe something

wait

till

noon

AVERAGE YOU MUST CUT YOUR LONGING SHORT.

for the

'

INWARD BOUND

6 phone

call

from the contractor

afternoon you walk

who just might

impulse to have a drink or look at

going to sink to

If

you

TV until after dark. You are not

most Americans you

go away. Or take up

will

it

a job. In the

that.

are like

and hope

have

downtown and try to look busy. You resist the

will

a

ignore your

hobby.

Or

boredom

have an

affair.

Or get divorced. Or start a new business. Or keep busy. Or eat to fill

up the

as the

pneumonia.)

you

If

none of these works you

wonder

depression and

boredom

When

void.

what's the matter with you. (Think of

common

you can

cold of the psyche and depression as

afford

it

and

seek psychiatric help.

will

will fall into

If

aren't afraid of introspection

you

physician to prescribe tranquilizers or

you

can't,

mood

will get

elevators.

your

Or you

Or try to tough it out. And you will feel alone. But you are not. Accurate statistics are hard to come by, but we can estimate from the dramatic increase will drink.

in suicide

attempts and sales of antidepressant drugs that

and depression time

population at some

will likely strike half of the

in their lives. Psychiatrists report that

boredom

most patients nowa-

days arrive in their consulting rooms not with raw pain but with a severe case of emptiness. "Doctor,

Something

more

to

is

life

missing and

than

I

don't

I

just don't feel anything.

know what

it is.

There must be

this."

Modem literature warned us of the spiritual malaise long before psychiatric clinics were inundated with depressed patients. In

1936, Georges Bernanos in Diary oj a Country

What do

you want, more or

less?

Priest

warned:

THE BOREDOM EPIDEMIC

TTie world

needs It is

is,

boredom

you

eat

on your

and drink

it

It is

you

teeth. But stand

To

can't see

notice

sifted so fine,

still

coating your face and hands.

ashes

(ennui)

You go about and never

like dust

it in,

grit

eaten up by

is

a little preliminary thought:

it all

you breathe

it

doesn't even

shake off

go.

...

at once.

it,

for an instant

To

you must be forever on the

perceive this

and there

wonder

I

it

this drizzle of if

man

has ever before experienced this contagion, this leprosy of

boredom, an aborted in

some way

decay.

...

boredom, of

If

like

despair, a shameful

form of despair

the fermentation of a Christianity in

ever our species

stale disgust

is

to perish

it

will die of

(As for instance the world wars of

today which would seem to show such prodigious human activity,

are in fact indictments of a

humanity

In

the end, at certain stated periods, they will lead

huge

flocks of resigned sheep to

T

Eliot sketched the outline of the

S

showed us

in J

growing apathy of

Alfred Prufrock a

be slaughtered.)

modem

wasteland and

man whose enthusiasm had

fled:

I have seen them all already

The mornings,

evenings, afternoons.

I have measured out

my

life

Hemingway provided

in coffee spoons.

the litany for a world where the expe-

riences of the void replaced both

hope and

Clean, Well-Lighted Place" he

the story of an old

When

you're fed up,

is

tells

satisfaction. In

something eating you?

"A

man who

INWARD BOUND

8

He

has failed at everything, even suicide

sits in

a well-lit cafe for

moment before going out again into the night, and his life is summed up in a refrain that is a parody of the ancient prayer: "Our a

nada

[Spanish

name.

who

"nothing"]

for

art

be thy

nada

nada,

in

" .

.

Samuel Beckett showed us the absurdity

One bum

"Do you

asks the other.

"Mine always was," he

in Waiting for Godot.

believe in the

life

to come?"

Paddy Chayevsky gave us an

replies.

unforgettable vignette in Marty where two

young men, hanging

out on a Saturday night with nothing to do, keep asking each

other

What

do you want

What

I don't know.

to do,

do you want

I don't know, Marty.

Boredom

is

doubly

a closet disease it

Marty?

What

do you want

difficult to

behind a curtain of silence and

book

never bored."

I

that

to

do?

diagnose and cure because

We are ashamed of

interviews for this

Angio

to do,

Like guilt or

it.

denial.

I

found

shame we hide in

conducting

most people protest too much.

asked one beautiful young mother

it is

if

"I'm

she was ever

bored. "Never," she replied, "I'm always doing something.

I

don't

A week later she called me

and asked if we could talk "When you first asked me if was ever bored denied it," she said. "But when thought about it realized was bored all the time but felt too embarrassed to admit it. feel guilty. What right

have time." again.

I

I

I

1

I

do

I

have to

child.

I

I

feel

bored?

I

have everything,

travel to exotic places.

even have an

I

affair

I

don't have

I

a beautiful house, a

could take a job

any excuse

if

for being

I

bored

Extroverts turn out for things. Introverts turn DREAMS.

wanted, or

in

1

have

toward

BOREDOM

THE no

But

restrictions.

myself.

Here

appreciating

9

EPIDEMIC I

don't really enjoy

my

life.

is all

the beauty and preciousness of

it!

feel

I

lifeless

I

just don't

ashamed of

I'm

and

life

not

I'm

have enthusiasm for

anything"

We

Americans are particularly phobic about boredom ourselves as go-getters

and the

is

we have

guaranteed us by law. By industry and imagination

Most of us

created a society richer in things than any past society.

luxury that medieval kings would have envied In

live in material fact,

see

right to the pursuit of happiness

we have democratized

the dis-ease of kings Everyone

now

can afford ennui.

To

get a true picture of

boredom, we have to look

we spend our deny

is

substance

chasing

us.

The

how much at

its

our

secondary

in trying to

lives are

shaped by

—

the ways

effects

escape from this monster

frenzy of our flight (and the strategies

use to avoid the void) gives us a true index of

what the

early Christian

noontide."

What

price

all

monks

do we pay

how much we

referred to as "the

we we

fear

demon

of

to maintain our false self-image

as robust, never-bored-a-day-in-our-lives, on-top-of-it-all extro-

verts?

What is

some

of our substitutes, our favorite ways of dodging boredom:

Keeping busy.

go.

the hidden cost of denying our boredom?

(The

devil finds

work

Keep moving. Work and produce

for idle hands.) Stay

We are what we do.

are retired or find yourself with leisure, get a Speed.

Americans are caught

in perpetual

drugs are caffeine and sugar. Never

Here

let

are

on the If

you

"hobby"

motion.

Our

favorite

the body, the psyche, or

The law of economic and psychologic gravity: what goes up MUST COME DOWN. Or MANIA INVITES DEPRESSION.

W the

INWARD BOUND economy slow down Speed

adrenaline.

Consume. Eat.

Stimulate

We are addicted to our own

freaks.

the void.

Fill

any desire

If

instant food, sex, or the latest gadget.

Keep

entertained. Fill

a radio or

up your

Go

time. Plug

arises, satiate it

with

to the mall.

your nervous system into

TV.

And what are the results

of our flight from

boredom? What price

our denial of our dis-ease?

We are always tired.

Fatigue.

are exhausted

out young.

by

We

a depression

systems and

a diet of artificial stimulants.

Speed

are suffering from a massive energy

psychological level political level

Our nervous

it is

it

is

economy

freaks

crisis.

wear

At the

At the economic-

called depression.

called recession, stagnation, readjustment. But

by any other name

addiction to stimulation as a

way

And

our

blinds us to our drugs

and

smells just the same.

of

life

blinds us to the possible joys of a slower "steady-state"

way

of

life

our anxieties are focused on maintaining our "energy" sources.

All

The

manic-depressive cycle

is

the American

economic exhaustion

spiritual,

unbroken

intensity,

is

the

flip

progress, "growth."

way

of

life

Psychic,

side of the drive for

The

rule

we

follow

is

Satchel Paige's: "Don't never look back, 'cause something might be

gaining on you." Violence.

ate

Our

love

affair

with violence springs from our desper-

need to make our exhausted systems

feel

would rather smash things and people than tiness.

Violence comes

Crime

is

in

many

forms:

a mood-altering drug.

something. face

We

our emp-

THE BOREDOM EPIDEMIC

We

Divorce.

1

1

tear the fabric of the family

have cut and run rather than continue to marriages.

till

Nearly half of us the

soil

of fallow

We have no faith that we must wait through the sterile new life will appear. We demand that our relation-

winter before

ships always be "interesting," "exciting," "growing." 2.

Drugs stimulate the deadened psyche and imagination.

Grass to make green the "education" and work.

moods

of those

who

imagination burned out by

fields of

Amphetamines and "uppers"

elevate the

cannot stand the depths. Alcohol deadens

the pain of the loss of passion and puts our conscience to troubled sleep 3.

the

media preach—

Why

^violence pays

TV

miscellaneous crimes on violence? Here

an

I

tion

—

in the streets

the

a

problem

is

and the good

it,

until for

is

life

is

is

is

boredom.

know why they

spiritual

are

.

.

.

alive,

and psychological

basically an

amused one.

.

stasis, .

The

stuck with his boredom, stuck inside, stuck to

two or three minutes he

around the comer and

War

overwhelming convic-

single,

underneath

simply a string of near- experiences marked off

by periods of stupefying

delinquent

Having spent

with boys of an American gang,

People no longer seem to existence

Violent."^

"causes" delinquency.

came away with ... that

surprised

what the playwright Arthur Miller says about

one knows what

some months

we be

our young people get hooked on

"The Bored and the

article,

No

is

should

and an equal number of

that after watching 25,000 murders

in

what

Juvenile delinquents horrify us because they practice

feels

an expensive cheap

the

thrill.

"lives",

thrill

he goes on

a raid

of risking his skin or

it

n

INWARD BOUND

'

he smashes

his life as

other

kid's

day

his

head. In a sense, his

It is

shopping

about for a week

talk

nothing coming up

with gasoline on some

a bottle filled

is

tour.

It

gives

It

It

makes

him something

dying

as close to

as

you can

Unless one grasps the power of boredom, the threat of one's existence,

member

a

And

it is

of the

only

is

NFL.

for the

get. it

to

impossible to "place" the delinquent as

human

delinquency

enough

to

Standing around with

life.

is

Miami.

his trip to

it is

race

Little

Leaque violence, not even big

big league violence the play-off

In

is

between suicide and war. 4.

Suicide

The

extrovert.

and the

retired

violence for the introvert, war suicide rate is

our unlived

at

inches.

"only

up

soaring.

among

We

When

lives.

some

exhausted,

is

violence for the

self

unemployed,

because of disgust

our capacity for hope has been

of us prefer to die

at

all

once rather than by

empty. Better to take the

life is

out" than face the void. Certain phrases keep

in suicide notes: "I'm tired."

nothing

can do."

is

teenagers, the

murder the

Without work or worth,

way

"There I

is

"I

just

left

want

"I

to live for

to rest."

can't "

"My

go on

"This soul

is

is

"

"I've lost

my

the only thing

dead."

"I

have

popping nerve."

left

felt

that

myself

slipping." 5.

War

is

the final distraction. Nations regularly sacrifice their

blood for "adventure" disguised alive.

we

War

get too secure,

that

war gives

Happiness

OWNING.

as honor.

Violence makes us

gives us an occasion for heroism

is

us.

boredom creeps (The

in,

and intensity

we want

rate of individual

being consumed, fire

or

feel

When

the excitement

suicides drops

passion,

in

not eating or

THE BOREDOM EPIDEMIC wartime.)

Warfare

exaltation of the

1

from tedium.

relief

is

Vienna crowds

"The people whose

lives

day

August 1914, Trotsky wrote,

in

and day out pass

in

on the

Reflecting

in a

monotony

modem

of hopelessness are many: they are the mainstay of

The

society.

alarm of mobilizations breaks into their lives like a

promise, the familiar and long-hated

and unusual reigns in store for

them

in its place.

in

—what can seem worse

6

How much

Illness.

knows

it

is

overthrown, and the

Changes

still

more

.

.

sickness

.

is

an escape? Every hypochon-

One

better to suffer than face the void.

grief." Illness is a

Some

incredible are

than normal conditions.""^

Faulkner's characters says. "Between nothingness

choose

new

the future. For better or worse? For better of

course

driac

is

specialists in

break

and

grief,

of

will

I

in the routine

psychosomatic medicine suggest that can-

may sometimes be ways for lives The disease provokes a

cer and other life-threatening diseases

novelty to be introduced into stuck crisis:

change or

Certainly ourselves.

we

die!

all

recognize

We worry,

unusual person

who

fill

how much we do

daily violence to

ourselves with constant anxiety.

It is

the

can tolerate happiness for more than three

days at a time.

Why do we have this

love affair with suffering?

What

is

worse

We court stress and dis-ease Why are we so threatened by

than pain? Nothingness perhaps. rather than risk contentment.

psychological, spiritual, physical health?

When we

begin to

tally

escape a vacuum of meaning

No

SPEED

the cost of our "normal" efforts to in

our

DEMON CAN OUTRUN THE

lives, it is

DEVIL.

clear that

it is

time

INWARD BOUND

14

to bring our dis-ease out of the closet. Bertrand Russell said,

"Boredom sins of

mankind

to look this

problem

a vital

is

are caused

demon

for the moralist, since at least half the

by the

fear of

square in the eye,

Perhaps,

it."^

we may be

we

if

able to

dare

tame

rather than destroy ourselves in futile attempts to escape.

even remotely possible that

if

we

sit

quietly

It

it is

and meditate on the

void that underlies our manic pursuits and distraction

we may

find

that the monster

is

disguise.

we have feared for a lifetime By tracing our way through the labyrinth

of our dis-ease,

we may

find the path to health.

"If

In the last

century there was a

you know

syphilis,

manifest

itself

same might be

is

boredom. Boredom

your boredom, know

will

is

syphilis could

The in all

scaring yourself

yourself.

into night country, into the heart of

encounter

all

the major themes of psychology:

and shame, freedom and compulsion,

will,

imagination,

By studying your boredom you may come

feeling, sensation.

in

doctors:

an element

is

boring yourself, psychosis

As we move more deeply

guilt

among

you know medicine" (because

said about

Know

boredom, we

saying

through such a wide variety of symptoms).

disease. Neurosis

to death

common

an angel

to

understand what motivates you, what values you hold, and what risks

you must take

The basic

to remain truly alive for

strategy this

and the blues

is:

book suggests

is:

of your days.

for dealing with

embrace them. Don't

fundamental rule of the psyche

all

try positive thinking.

whatever

you

resist

Those who run from boredom and depression lifetime running. Surrender will lead

you

to health.

Turn around and

Go

into

it.

will

will

A

persist.

spend

Study your dis-ease and

Memorize your

face yourself.

boredom

neurotic cycles and

a it

you

5

THE BOREDOM EPIDEMIC can run through them

in

any "negative" emotion

Canyon.

In

1

minutes rather than weeks. Dealing with is

like

running the rapids

in

the

Grand

the turbulent Colorado River the greatest danger

is

getting thrown out of the boat and getting caught in a whirlpool

or roller that sucks you down. to the surface,

you

will likely

If

you

struggle prematurely to get

drown But

if

you out twenty

action of the water will spit

you go deeper, the feet

downstream on

the surface

The

philosophical

and psychological view on which the

diagnosis and prescriptions of this

and depression are itself.

to

They

dis-eases

book

boredom

are based

is

that

by which the psyche

is

trying to heal

are invitations to begin an

inward-bound adventure,

descend into your depths and be reborn The awareness of

boredom

is

the gateway to the hero's journey. Pay attention and

you may emerge more

virile

melancholy and eternity

Go

and wonder- ful. Blue

is

the color of

deep and find the wild blue yonder.

CHAPTER

2

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BLUES AND THE NOONTIDE DEMON

What is this silent dis-ease? What causes it? Can it be cured? Can we find our way out of gray boredom and black depression? Before we can prescribe, we must describe. We have to be careful what words and concepts we use or we might fetch up the wrong treatment. for instance, we define boredom as a sin, as the early Christians did, we may have to discover a way to get divine forgiveness to cure if it is an impurity in the blood we If,

it,

might use leeches to suck out the bad blood,

we will need an to Hawaii,

The

exorcist,

if it is

a

if it is

pure

an

evil spirit

monotony we may need

chemical imbalance

we may

cure

it

a trip

with a

pill.

way to begin is by standing back from our present The ancestors of the modern experience of depression

best

condition.

if it is

Whoever names the

disease

owns the

cure.

7

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BLUES and boredom

many: the

are

1

down"

"cast

soul of the Psalms, the

black bile of Aristotle, the "demon of noontide" of the desert

monks, the

actixa

and aversion we

and

feel

\r\sX\\\a

(which Aquinas defines as the sorrow

when we have

acted against our

own

spiritual

good) of the medieval church, the melancholia of Hamlet, the ennui of Pascal, the romantic Weltschmerz and Lan^weile of the the spleen of the English, the angst of

nineteenth century,

Kierkegaard, the nausea of Sartre.

some

history will give us

did they cure

Let's

How

did peoples in other

we have come

begin by trying to put ourselves

their cave

and jump through

skip,

to call

boredom?

it?

men and women Mr and Mrs

is

hop,

perspective.

times and places experience what

How

A

the skins of "primitive"

in

Flintstone

sit

by the entrance

many

Both are very old and have not

years to

live.

to

He

she thirty-two. She bore seven children (each birth

thirty-five,

took enough calcium to cost her a tooth) but only two lived

beyond infancy. The cold and the too

for the

by

a

now makes

their old joints arthritic

food that makes each winter an ordeal were

scarcity of

much

crippled

that

little

Of

ones

the two that survived, one was

rogue bear and walks with a bad limp

Still,

they

have been lucky, or rather the gods have been good to them.

During most of

their years

winters short This early

and one

As nearly

as

sky.

evening the

The omens

we can

enough

tell,

disappeared (eclipsed)

they were never bored.

bears,

Terror puts boredom to

moon

are strange.

to the margin

temper of wandering

has been plentiful and the

they are worried: the wild geese flew south

terrifying

from a cloudless

lived near

fall

game

—the

of terror

In fact,

marauding neighbors, and

flight.

they

unexpected fickle

INWARD BOUND

18

—

unseasonal storms

lives.

welcomed what

that they

order, regu-

little

and monotony they could manage to introduce

larity,

Because their

had time average

lives

were so short and

for midlife crises. (In

expectancy

life

in

is still

some third-world the early

into their

they never

difficult,

countries the

forties.) Life

was

short,

dramatic, and uncertain.

how

Consider

middle age, that

We

round. tribe,

expectancy

life

is

affects

thirty- five to forty,

second

fulfilled.

We

have "seen

and that requires us

life,

self-images,

people.

we have completed

have been children, adolescents,

gotten married, and had children.

has been

modern

full

members

Our biological

it all."

and ten

of our

start a

to break out of the habits, roles,

and jobs that have contained us during the

In threescore

full

imperative

now we must

But

a

By

first half.

time to be born, or bored, again and

there's

again.

On

But back to the Flintstones

an early spring evening near

the equinox, they and their neighbors gathered for a ceremony that

was church, dance,

one Every primitive

entertainment, and art

feast,

tribe

all

had some yearly cycle of

dance to pay homage to the

rolled into

ritual-story-

regularities of nature.

(The idea of

human

history, after

nature actually wasn't invented until late in

machines had begun to change and pollute the garden.) Chants

were repeated

had been retold,

endlessly, magical formulas recited exactly as they

recited

by previous

the drums beat out a hypnotic rhythm

repetition primitive peoples

orderly enough to survive.

is

by

rites

hoped

a

triumph,

it

By endless

grain they

not a

of passage.

always wanting to do

myths were

to coerce the world into being

give them the game and

Monotony was

celebrated

Love

generations, the old

again.

terror.

needed to

Order was

9

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BLUES

1

But within the tenuous order created by the ritual-story that

the

web

of myth-

was spun over natures uncontrollable wildness,

men and women who

who

survived were those

could best

improvise and react spontaneously to danger and opportunity.

When

the tiger burst into the circle of the campfire

ately separated the quick from the dead.

know how

to

listen

to

And

people

it

immedi-

who

did not

dreams and intuitions had no

their

guidance Survival depended on physical courage, endurance, the withstand the hunger of lean winters and the pain of

ability to

long marches.

By

modem

contrast, survival in the

adapt ourselves to the monotonous (other names are

ability to

"efficient," "orderly," "standardized")

chine.

A virtuous

repeats

world depends on our

itself,

ai

world created by the ma-

machine makes no mistake, creates no infinitum,

ad nauseam.

The

surprise,

we produce

virtues

are

and conformity to law

punctuality, dependability, predictability,

and order Repetition, regularity, ages,

orderliness,

In the

triumph

in

former

heyday of ancient Greece, monotony doesn't seem

much of The Greeks knew

a problem.

total state of depression all

Two

of

There was no word

the experience of satiation

much

resulting from too

of a

good thing

—

and despair that

^but

for

to

boredom.

—

desirelessness

nothing

like

the

finds a person fed

up

life.

figures in

Greek myths

reflect

Sisyphus, for reasons not quite clear,

When new is born, JOY.

a

have become the terror of modern times.

have been

with

and

old

dies.

is

an experience of

condemned by

Creation roots

in grief,

futility.

the gods to

flowers

in

mWARD BOUND

20 an eternal roll

life

up

of rolling a boulder

back down

just before

mountain only to have

a

He

he reaches the summit.

be the prototype for assembly-line workers

who

might well

attach

left rear

And

fenders of Fords that are obsolete within a few years.

Tantalus

submerged up to

is

whenever he

leans

down

neck

his

and

to drink

of grapes overhead that vanishes

in

water that recedes

"tantalized"

is

when he

by

reaches for

a

like

modem

experience of depression. Four humors or bodily

he

mix

says,

people

—

in different

and unnameable

Troublesome

may be

Perhaps the nearest

boredom

is

a "sacred

Melancholy may be

to creativity.

among

fluids,

bile

When

given to sorrow, disqui-

is

and perhaps even to suicide

sadness,

temperament

as this

genius. Black bile

and black

bile,

the black bile predominates, a person etude,

the

proportions to create different types of

phlegm, yellow

blood,

bunch

it

melancholy very

Aristotle does speak of a condition of

it

is,

it is

also the foundation of

malady" that predisposes a

man

hidden blessing.

a

we get in the ancient world to modem Roman upper class. The poet Horace

the

writes to his dissatisfied slave in charge of his country property

and reminds him that when he was the country, and in the city.

labor.

The

sulting

he

which

life in

in

the country he wants to be is

hard physical

from apathy,

be involved

[is]

paralyzed

we have

an almost

"the torpor of the soul its

modem paralysis,

desires."

(Here

experience

—extreme boredom

life

and

to

make

a

commitment

in political affairs.

chaos

is

king

re-

and absence of desire.) His solution

to balance solitude and social

When

is

cure for such disquietude

the midst of the ruins of

exact replica of the

is

that

the city he wanted to be in

Stoic philosopher Seneca complains of "taedium vitae,"

the tedium of in

now

The only

in

we worship

order.

And

vice versa.

to

1

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BLUES Disgust with

life

was certainly momentarily experienced

ancient world, but social problem.

2

never became a serious psychological or

it

The

Romans were

ancient Greeks and the early

animated by a buoyant and expansive feeling about experiment of civilization was ing and giving birth to the

ophy, democracy was

just beginning, reason

fledgling science

first

in the

bud.

Men

and

life.

and to

women

movements

human

such law and order into

dream

worked

by

make

to

to

stars,

period

saw the

and hoped to bring

They were

possessed by a

—

citizens of a

and they

world governed

youthful enthusiasm they took tragedy,

In their

and even death

philos-

in this

their cities as rational as the cosmos,

become cosmopolitan

natural laws

failure,

of the

affairs.

The

was emerg-

of the adolescence of culture looked around them, (divine) order in the

in the

In their

in stride

eyes the world was

still

an arena for some rational-divine-orderly drama to be unfolded.

When

the blues visited

them they

be reminded that their small that gave

were contained within

above and the moral law within" (Kant) was

a

cosmos

sufficient

them of despondency

Something happened nerve,"

eyes to the stars to

them meaning and purpose. Contemplation of the

"starry skies

to heal

lives

lifted their

some have

to

said.

Greco-Roman buoyancy.

The

A "failure

of

reasons are complex and don't

concern us here.

What

feeling about

life

changed shortly before the beginning of the

Christian era

It

is

important

went from

in

our survey

light to dark,

is

that the

from optimism to

pessimism, from hope to despair, from confidence in the dream of earthly happiness to the conviction that

Ecology

is

believing

the cosmos has

its

human

logic.

life

was

"fallen,"

INWARD BOUND

22 riddled with

and could be redeemed only by

sin,

sacrificing

present pleasure for future salvation. Gnosticism and Christianity

introduced the

first

serious depression into

—

the idea of acedia

by

acterized

where the

explorers of an

spiritual

experiments

except the

earliest

earlier

monks

time)

in meditation, asceticism,

Nothing would life

Above

all

torpor. Let's

go

(the psychonauts, or

were conducting

their

and mysticism.

of a solitary contemplative and

When

of God."

and

Evagrius of Pontus

satisfy

was an archdeacon of Constantinople for the desert.

and

culture,

a psychological or spiritual condition char-

indifference, disgust, dryness,

into the desert

Western

at

(bom ad. 345)

monk. Although he

an early age, he longed

he wanted the hard path of the "athlete

he was thirty-eight he

left

the busding splendor

of the center of the Eastern world (later Istanbul) to seek mystical

union with

and the he

the desert. After years of wrestling with

in

he wrote

devil,

a

book on the

eight capital sins in

Cod

which

about acedia (from the Creek word meaning "lack of

talks

care").

Cod

From

this

we

can reconstruct something of his experience.

Let's listen to his solitary

only way.

I

thoughts: "Prayer and fasting are the

must burn out every impulse to

sin.

Here on the desert

toward Cod.

my timepiece and my arise in the cool darkness, my mind and will bent pray and wait. Evil thoughts creep into my mind.

Sometimes

cannot help thinking of the moist cucumbers and

the sun

both friend and enemy

is

persecutor.

I

1

I

passed

life

is

paradise.

I

ate daily

in the

sweating, smelling of

If

is

1

yahouts and oranges slave girl

It

woman,

hell, a wise

when

1

was

in

the

—naked

market one day slips into

city.

Or

the

to the waist,

mind, haunts and troubles

man may choose to dwell

in

a fool's

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BLUES

me Or

pride attacks me, puffs

equal to

Our Lord

thoughts

me up and makes me

for the sufferings

No

discipline myself.

I

23

I

Mortify the

and

this life are vain

is

my

hours

am

I

into the heavens in this place.

weak

doubts

a

as

—was my

not back

1

if

I

ration of water.

God. The pleasures of

my spirit

remains constant, the bliss

is

too great to be

me and

himself takes mercy on

bride. For endless

midday

in

'the

noontide demon' of which the

me fall as low into acedia as have risen God seems to desert me, and wonder why My spirit is dry, my faith vanishes, my will I

1

I

1

a

ecstasy of the

who

drove

Gonstantinople?

My

broken back.

me

morning

real,

mind

casts

or only a dream

into this barren place?

The

up

Why am

sadness overtakes me. Nothing

can do.

"Of

all

replace

the vices, acedia

my

soul dry

and leaves

night of the soul

hollowed out

I

in

pushed down into

mercy of God.

the worst.

are driven

my

true desire for

me no

I

can chastise

my this

I

my

this:

my

when

soul that will later

concupiscence

I

endure

be

filled

it

is

my

the dark

some depth

by God

condition of sin to be raised up

remain alone

pride,

God. But acedia sucks

strength to fight back This

know only

He must first make us

us to Himself. So,

We

is

avarice with generosity, even quiet

with the thought of

is

when

God

breast

hawk with

caused by a devil I

and

lost in eternal union. Bliss.

"But then toward

is

morning to

bridegroom comes to the

Psalms speak assaults

am

my will

are times

my

spirit, as a

am evil

fleeting

There

contained within joins

way

the only

"During the morning hours soars upward.

I

the cool waters of the

in

my

deny myself

will

1

flesh: this

I

breakfast this morning,

cannot banish the visions of bathing Mediterranean

When

undertake

have

think

1

am

by the

nothing before he can bring

in this desert,

waiting for the

to distraction to escape creeping

despair.

IMWAkD BOUND

24

One who is Alone to take me nothing, God will come to me The God.

demon

ancient

In the

When

to Himself.

am

1

finally

"

of noontide destroyed faith in an existing

modern darkness

of noon,

things sacred are in

all

eclipse.

Jump over

the Middle Ages (when acedia and sloth were

defined as marks of sin to be erased only by diligent good works

and the grace of God), and land

Elizabethan England.

in

Shakespeare, whose characters represent an encyclopedia of

human in

and

virtues

vices, gives us a portrait of

Hamlet The melancholy Dane makes

indecision,

"How

and world-weariness.

me

unprofitable seem to

all

boredom

weary,

incarnate

mourning,

a career of stale,

flat,

and

the uses of this world."

Listen to his description of the inner world of melancholy:

1

have of

late

—but wherefore

mirth, forgone

earth,

all

air,

a sterile

look you,

of vapours. reason!

to

me

What

how

promontory,

this

this majestical roof fretted

no other thing

a piece of

how

work

like a god! the

paragon of animals!

In alien nations

man

the

goes so

this

most excellent

fire,

why,

it

appears

but a foul and pestilent congregation

express and admirable! in action

sence of dust?

it

brave o'erhanging firmament,

with golden

infinite in faculty! in

apprehension

and indeed

exercises,

my

lost all

disposition that this goodly frame, the

me

seems to

canopy, the

custom of

my

heavily with

—

know not

I

And

yet, to

is

how

noble

like

in

how

an angel!

in

beauty of the world! the

me, what

delights not me.

exile

how

man!

form and moving

.

.

is

this quintes-

.

discovers the meaning of home.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BLUES TTie world exiled from nobility

lies

25

shimmeringly beautiful before Hamlet, yet he

Delight has turned to disgust. Stripped of

it

and meaning, Hamlet

is

unable to

impotent contemplation of suicide is

the question."

action

is

And

like

many

—

a

^"to

be or not to

modem

to strike out in blind violence, to

all

He is caught in

act.

is

the

be, that

antihero, his only

kill

what he

is

unable

to love.

Pascal (1623-1662) takes the sense of being exiled from a

potentially delightful

life

as characteristic of the entire

condition and becomes the philosopher of ennui. Here

emerging the

first

hints of the

modem,

person caught between boredom and Pascal

was

worked out

a troubled genius.

existentialist

human

we

see

view of the

terror.

By the age of twelve he had

Euclid's propositions for himself,

by nineteen he had

invented a calculating machine, by twenty-two he had formulated

an important scientific theory of the vacuum At an early age he

moved among an he rejected death

angel.

French intellectuals All of

this

and severe asceticism before

his

at thirty-nine

In his view,

of

elite circle of

for voluntary poverty

We

are

man

is

a creature of extremes, a beast

and

a fallen

haunted on one side by the beauty of the Garden

Eden from which we have been exiled and on the other by the

terrifying infinite spaces of the universe.

The

following

is

from

Pensies:

When

1

consider the short extent of

eternity before see,

engulfed

in

and

after,

my

life,

swallowed

the small space that

the infinite immensity of spaces

The machine augurs

a boring future.

I

fill

in

or even

unknown

to

his

INWARD BOUND

26

me and which know me find myself here it

not,

and not

should be here, not there,

time.

Who

this place

me

put

I

and astounded to

terrified

no reason why

is

why now rather than

here? By

and time been

am

there. For there

another

at

whose order and design have

allotted to

me? The memory

of a

guest that tarrieth for a day.

To

escape the horror and disappointment of existence,

beings will run in any direction. At

all

specter of death and the hopelessness of

average person

and diversion evil of

a vain flight

from ennui, because of "the natural

once we dwell on

nothing can console

it

Gambling, the company of women, high

—

all

make

for

and win a

is

so wretched that

us."

{Pensies,

205)

office, theater, riding to

of these amusements serve only to keep us from

thinking about our unhappy condition. to succeed

from the

a constant search for entertainment

our weak and mortal condition, which

the hounds

flee

without God. For the

becomes

life

—

we

costs

life

human

secure

danger because then

If,

by chance, we

struggle

for ourselves the conditions that

and contented

we must

we

life,

face our terror

ourselves Striving for success

is

doubly

are

As long

we

get caught up in the excitement of the chase,

would

as

we

in

can

can forget

ultimately better than achieving

it.

201. as to

Boredom

(ennui).

be completely

A man idle,

finds

nothing so unbearable

without passions, occupations,

amusements, or reading. Then he

feels that

lonely, inadequate, dependent, powerless,

immediately there spring from deep

in his

created machine

in his image.

And

it

nothing:

is

and empty. And heart boredom,

gloom, sadness, vexation, anger, and despair.

Man

he

.

.

.

returned the favor.

^

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BLUES Although

27

men's misfortunes spring from the single cause

"all

one room," quiet and

that they are unable to stay quietly in

meditation are no solutions to the threat of boredom Introspection or the inner search

blind grasping

We

boredom

Boredom this

that

he

from

to

Once we

is

created into which

only by an

by God." To discover

God

emphasis on

life

can come. This

exiled,

We

which

we must

—waiting — marks him God the problem

as

yet died, hence he could

—and

living in a

come

man from

machina

save

this faith that a

transcendent

is

to

our birthright

first

be stripped of

must confront our mortality

void to be

for the

still

abyss

is

a

boredom, Pascal sounds very modem. But

to evade

infinite

object, that

amusement park as

in the

void of

knowledge

lies in his

and immutable

that happiness

pretensions and evasions. In his

of

recognize our inner emptiness a

infinite

and from which we have been all

creature

a

is

worse, to spend a

a bridge across the

it is

"The greatness of man

miserable

filled

or,

the cure in the dis-ease

finds

a blessing in disguise,

God

Mankind

be bored

happiness than

it.

is

vacuum

say,

is

world to

can be

condemned

most mystics, Pascal

Like

likely to yield

amusements

after

are

lifetime running

no more

is

filled

world of

in at

the

the worst.

last It is

way of trying

his solution to

by the grace of

belief

God had

—

moment

a

not

deus ex

precisely the loss of

God can intervene to rescue us from modem boredom so much

death and nothingness that makes

more desperate than anything

Pascal or the Christian mystics

experienced.

The modem

variety of

century. Previously,

Abstraction rism

IS

A

is

LIAR.)

boredom

men and women

arose

in

the nineteenth

suffered from black bile,

a thief that steals from the concrete. (Apho-

INWARD BOUND

28 acedia,

and melancholy but not boredom. Wives got

com and

grinding

every morning, but they were not bored.

An

the assembly crew for the pyramids

the

make

blocks to

We can

assume

and the word

tired of

chasing kids and waking up to the same face

felt

Egyptian slave on of

futility

moving

a giant triangle in the desert but was not bored.

because experience

this

came

boredom only

is

connected to language

into use a

more than

little

a

century ago. if

we pay

close attention to the images

word we

sleep in the

will discover the

and connotations that

key to the

modem

ex-

perience.

bore: to pierce especially drill

bore: to

by means

of a rotary tool, as a

or auger

afflict

with ennui: depress, weary, and annoy by

irksome tediousness

dullness: crush with

Boredom sprung suddenly nearly as scholars can

tell,

it

into the English vocabulary.

was not

originally associated with

any of the other words used to characterize

The image

is

As

similar experiences.

taken from the world of machines: a bit goes round

and round, biting ever deeper until

it

wears a hole

in

the substance

being bored.

Modem boredom a

is

not

like

water dripping on a rock,

it is

like

machine grinding us down.

A

major cause, perhaps

the

major cause, of boredom

have become machine-minded. Just outside

world,

it

has

also

as

given us the

Did we de/cide to cut ourselves

off?

is

that

we

technology shaped our images

we

use to

79

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BLUES understand ourselves.

The modern myth

ErawVsnskm.

is

ated a monster that threatens to destroy us. cation, but in

died.

Humans

modem world could

in three statements:

Tht machine was

God

cre-

an oversimplifi-

It is

broad oudine the history of the

be summarized

We

invented.

[Man

took over.)

(Nature was desecrated.)

were bored. [To death? Perhaps!)

Let's trace

modern

the logic of events that gave rise to the

problem of boredom

The machine was engines, airplanes,

With steam

invented.

T

mass-produced Model

human

Caterpillar tractors,

Fords,

beings took over the planet, seized control of

The machine shrunk

the direction of evolution

and concentrated power and population cities,

gasoline

engines,

time and space

People poured into

broke their connection with the rhythms of the seasons and

the habit of planting-waiting-hoping-harvesting. Nature a "thing,"

raw material to be fabricated into objects that promised

happiness and wealth

A

man's worth

—money—

abstract tokens

rather than

The

personal power, and stories.

modem

of machines. Bertrand Russell puts

Whatever we may wish .

.

.

The rhythm

to

is

to

by

land,

be measured by cattle,

family,

we have moved from

more our

life is

it

lives

have been

the unbroken intensity

well:

think

of Earth

What's good for the earth

came

further

farming, hunting, and gathering, the

speeded up The cadence of

Earth.

became

we

life is

are

slow,

creatures

of

autumn and

not General Motors'

business.

INWARD BOUND

30 winter are as essential to as essential as

as spring

it

motion

.

and summer, and

necessary to preserve

It is

contact with the ebb and flow of

terrestrial life.

these reasons a generation that cannot endure

be

rest

some

For

.

is

boredom

all

will

men, of men unduly divorced from

a generation of little

the slow process of nature, of

men

in

whom

every

vital

impulse slowly withers as though they were cut flowers

in a

vase.'

"Cut flowers

More

certainly a divine

in a vase."

What

we

are

cut off from? Nature,

than that, the cosmos as a created order in which

drama was being played.

In a brilliant

book on the

history of ennui, The Demon of Noontide,

Reinhard Kuhn characterizes the difference between the ancient

and

modem

experiences of boredom:

Previously,

certain values

had always existed and ennui

resulted from the inability to live

accepted values existing, truths

of sainthood. is

left is

to find

Until

The

made

it

That option has now been

and yet

dream

and

closed,

all

that

comes from no longer being able

values."^

modem

times people had always lived within an over-

arching scheme of meaning,

God or the gods were experienced as

working within the natural order of

was the

to these generally

possible for even pessimists to

the anguish that

any

up

belief in such unattainable,

visible proof of the

changed by the machine.

We

things.

The

yearly harvest

bounty of the gods.

became

aliens in

All that

our

Compulsion swallowed the clock. Celebration

own

spit it

was

world.

out.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BLUES The

forests

and wild places became

woods, to the woods, the

3 terrifying

villain says.

woods, the heroine replies

No. No. Anything but the

The only

)

and strange (To the

God we

intimate

ever

knew, the sanctity homogenized into the world surrounding

was

killed

No god

us,

by the machine.

one has captured

experience of the death of natures

this

better than Sartre In Nausea, the antihero Antoine Roquentin

describes his feeling about nature as a sticky

marmalade when he

looks at a garden:

Had

I

dreamed of

this

down

the garden, toppled soiling everything, I

with the garden.

was not

surprised,

I

suddenly revealing gross, absurd

hated

I

knew it was and

itself,

furious,

this

was

I

inside,

thought

was .1

the World, the naked I

it

ignoble mess.

choked with rage

how

it

was that

existence, rather than nothingness.

What

a rotten filth!"

sticky

filth,

but

it

and

held

weariness.

World at this all

world came into

.1 shouted,

"Filth!

rid of this

and there was so much, tons and

fast

...

a

shook myself to get

I

tons of existence, endless:

immense

sticky,

soft,

all

I

there, in

being You couldn't even wonder where

that sprang from or

way

was

marmalade And

was frightened,

so stupid, so out of place,

It

into the trees,

thick, a

all I

enormous presence?

I

I

stifled at

felt

the depths of this

with boredom that

I

had no

of understanding.

Faced with ingless),

a desacralized nature

modem man

value

and meaning

What

pace

has tried to are

absent in

(now nauseating and mean-

become

the missing god.

our world,

then

we

If

will

on earth makes goodwill toward men and women,

sloths, jaguars,

and whales?

INWARD BOUND

32

The

manufacture them begin

in despair

Their only salvation is

heroes

to create.

is

to face the nothingness

for

your personal

in Sartre's

novels are typical.

They

because nothing of value can be discovered.

life in

and

The only

terror of

escape from boredom

life

and create

meaning

a

the face of the void. But unfortunately our

image of creation comes from the way machines produce rather

way corn

than the

we

fall

grows. Hence, to create meaning for our lives

into machine-mindedness.

Modem boredom

is

the

symptom

ourselves the

and

ity,

same kind of

feelinglessness as

compulsively,

moving

than taking our chronos

own

of our successful failure.

We

have interiorized the machine.

regularity, efficiency, interchangeabil-

we do from

We

our machines.

time.

(The Greeks had two words time, kairos

was organic

for time:

time.)

We and

are

"retired" at sixty-five.

measure our worth by productivity, output. Imagination

feeling

must be kept under

strict control.

the job! At the end of the day

machines.

The

device, the

heart

mind

is

is

a

pump

that

to pigeonhole

suburbs.

Most

fallen

prey to

might be replaced by

a plastic

only a complex computer.

science fiction stories in which the machines rebel and

take over present.

tic-tac-toe

in

even the intimate part of our being has

recently,

The

No daydreaming on

we go "home"

apartments or numbered houses

its

We

we

expect to work an eight-hour day, forty-hour week until i.e.,

live

to the regular measure of clock time rather

was measured clock

obsolete,

We

have come to expect of

Demon

The

cadences.

—

Seed

are a mirror not of the future but of the

imperative of the machine

We

must have

full

forcing us to

production.

be kept busy. Otherwise our economy cancerous rate of industrial growth

Consumers lack a consuming

is

passion.

to

Our machines must

will lag.

is

march

No matter that our

threatening to pollute us

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BLUES oblivion,

into

showed

us in

to

Charlie Chaplin

destroy the sacred earth

Modem

Times

Round and round we go our

33

how we

are caught in the machine.

bores deeper until

It

it

wears a hole

in

our enthusiasm leaks out and leaves us empty and

soul,

depressed

A

complete analysis of the causes of

complex

We

go deeper

many

will unravel

into diagnosis

and

modem boredom

is

we

of the interrelated strands as

prescription. In the technological

world families are broken up regularly (the average American

moves every

five years),

lessness goes

anomie

—

and community disappears. With root-

normlessness Entertainment, the quest for

excitement, replaces deep satisfaction.

We

buy and consume

to

the emptiness and give us a sense of worth In back of these

fill

complex causes values from

move

at a

lies

the tyranny of the machine and machine

which we need

pace that

be

to

we may once

freed, so

again

allow us to savor our feelings, to listen to

will

our dreams.

I

remember

summer

vividly the

three-to-eleven shift at Electric

Wilmington, Delaware. God, For eight hours roll plastic

I

1

was

garden hose into a tight

was working the

awful! Hot, noisy,

—

—round and

The

By working hard could I

tie

unofficial daily

easily

do

this

"

it,

and boring.

round,

1

VVi

and put the

quota was 200

number

dared not. "Don't up the quota was the

in

My job was to

circle

put on the end couplings,

finished product in a box.

but

I

repeated the same set of motions.

revolutions per hose

hoses.

it

of 1958

Hose and Rubber Company

rule.

in five hours,

There was no

incentive paid for extra productivity I

tried everything to

make the job

Prophets don't soar on company time.

interesting.

I

tried to

34

INWARD BOUND

I

daydream, but

The job

blank.

couple of hours

after a

my mind was

required just enough attention to prevent any

creative thinking Finally,

I

hit

on something mildly

and verb forms. But one day the boss caught and

to myself

me

in early evening.

Each Friday night

We

talking out loud

found myself looking forward to lunch.

I

began smoking, because smokers were allowed

me up

I

was to be no learning on company time

said there

hours crept by

break

interesting.

German grammar and memorized vocabulary

tore pages from a

The

lulled into a

The summer seemed

at eleven

freedom

1

a fifteen -minute

years long.

arrived.

My

wife picked

and we drove the 100 miles to Bethany Beach.

at the plant

pitched a small tent on the dunes. In the early hours of the

morning

I

plunged into the ink-black sea and

wash over me

until

I

rubber was washed away.

make

let

wave

after

wave

was cleansed from the week and the smell of Finally, just

before dawn,

we would

love and go to sleep until the sun drove us from our tent.

Then, for hours, we lay on white sand, baptized ourselves jade water, and

then did

filled

my mind

As we moved machines, experience

spring back to

life

and

in a single lifetime

my

reflected in our language

spirit revive.

from simple to complex

we have moved from optimism is

in the

our eyes with the endless blue sky Only

to depression.

and song.

We

Our

have seen

the evolution of the blues, a change in the quality and meaning of the experience of melancholy. In

the 1930s, Americans sang the blues

lonesome, homesick blues") the lovesick blues.

In

nostalgia, the sense that

We

("I

had the blues

got the weary, in the

night and

those days "blue" meant longing and life

The antidote for boredom

was frequently lonely and sometimes

is

not for

sale.

A SHORT HISTORY OF THE BLUES us dry, and wanting

left

we were on

because

The

future

there

half empty.

It

would be no more depressions But

A

us.

safe for

1945

in

California.

democracy,

we began

Between Korea and Vietnam we

of time before the

War on

to live

our

lost

We arrived We were number

power and production, and proud of

pockets of

be blue,

permanent shadow of despair

innocence and gained our affluence in

right to

all

Every-

great war, the blues retreated for a while.

would make the world

sacrifice

loomed over

was

somewhere Maybe

the road to

under the mushroom cloud

one

weren't affluent then

looked promising.

still

With the second American

We

more

body was poor and about

35

it.

It

was only

a

matter

Poverty would wipe out the

last

peril.

meantime the

credit card society

had proclaimed an end

to delayed gratification

No more waiting,

planning, and working

In the

for distant rewards. Paradise

new

Now!

right to instant satisfaction,

In

we

the process of claiming the

hardly noticed that

we were

losing our capacity to dream, to hope, to sacrifice, to be excited

by

anticipation.

Advertising and manufacturing

empty.

some

They promised

product.

Of

made

it

a crime to

be hungry,

us that every longing could be filled

course,

it

We

became ashamed

of our

The blues stopped being a

gentle

wasn't.

emptiness, our cosmic nostalgia.

by

melancholy, a plaintive and tender lament about the essential

incompleteness of

life.

The

blues

became an

ugly,

shameful

resdessness, a psychological problem, a sign of neurosis

maladjustment, a disease called depression.

and

CHAPTER

3

RUNNERS, FIGHTERS, AND HIDERS LIFE-STYLES:

To

understand

boredom and life

in

why some

people spend a lifetime mnning from

others embrace

the raw

is

it,

we must begin

equally frightening and exciting.

facade of business-as-usual and "of course for lunch" lurks a

with the fact that

void of unpredictability.

I'll

Under the

meet you tomorrow

Our

lives are

always in

danger In the

animal world there are different styles of dealing with

danger: there are runners, fighters, and hiders, deer, gorillas, and

possums.

When

a deer spots a

prepared to do what

is

mountain

lion, its

is

instantly

necessary to survive: blood pressure and

heart rate are accelerated, bowels are emptied

Live dangerously!

body

Or not

at

all.

It

runs from the

LIFESTYLES: RUNNERS, FIGHTERS,

When

danger

AND HIDERS enemy,

a gorilla spots an invading

37 puffs

it

—

drums, makes fierce displays, and prepares to fight

When

a

possum senses danger,

it

if

freezes, plays dead,

its

chest,

necessary.

and hopes

the danger will disappear the

In

human world we can

see the

same patterns of response.

Runners and fighters (what Drs. Friedman and Rosenman Type

A

Behavior and Your Heart refer to as

Type

A

in

personalities) are

always prepared for dealing with danger Their sympatheticadrenal systems are constantly in an overactive condition, in a state of red alert

They

are always

on the move, scanning the

horizon for enemies.

A

majority of Americans

national

fall

We

are

by

We are out to be a "can do" people. We

temperament and training competitors.

the biggest, the best, the winners are intensity freaks,

Keeping busy

is

We

are

we want something way

our major

male, in particular, is

into this category

always

is

always to be happening.

of dealing with

in a hurry.

life

The American

Our chief personality

style

the extroverted activist Hiders, or

ment

like

Type B

personalities, try to

way Their response

harm's

blend into the environ-

camouflaged animals and remain quiet and stay out of

predominant use

to danger involves a

of the vagal -parasympathetic systems. In the presence of danger their

blood pressure drops, their pulse

to conceal themselves

by freezing

This pattern of response

men

in

remain

is

in place,

behaving

background, be yielding,

"just like a

you "have never

down They

try

remaining passive.

more common among women than

American culture Traditionally, in the

ingly helpless Aggressive

If

rate slows

women were

silent,

women were

expected to

unobtrusive, charm-

said to

be

"castrating" or

man." In cultures such as the Hopi or Navajo,

been bored a day in

running from something.

your

life,"

you have

been

INWARD BOUND

38 this softer

Type B

personality

aggressive stance toward

Type A

norm and

the

is

is

valued over the

life

personalities run from (or try to conquer)

you ask them, they

deny

boredom

If

that they have ever

been

we look only superficially, we may take them at word. But when we see the price they pay for remaining

their

bored.

will frequently

If

stantly in motion,

compulsive

we

effort to

discover that their lives are shaped

from unbroken intensity and competition

The

heart attacks and possibly in cancer.

hemorrhoids)

is

The

escape from boredom.

the

is

by

a

flowing

stress

major factor

in

cost of pushing (besides

what was once

exhaustion, or

con-

called "nervous

breakdowns." In

of fatigue or worse.

They

something

far

more

Lance

own

is

borrowed

America

is

he

The

capital),

You

woman

ARE

is

manic, our most

sort

is

and

who

reads Playboy,

owns

financially secure (with a lot is

handsome, and boyish

always busy. At in

appearance. flies

his

fifty

He

own

he

is

drives a airplane.

On any weekend he might be hang diving along the New Jersey coast, or flying with his

made him an

latest

prey to

not working he plays with the same intensity that

is

gliding, skin

fall

depression.

Corvette, never less than 75 mph, and

When

swamp

depression or despair. Since our

manufacturing company,

lean, wiry,

into the

unconscious, only to

style in

100 percent man.

a

fall

—

psychological malady

of help from still

it

serious

most popular personality

common

persons

escape the minor dis-ease of boredom

by repressing and keeping

his

A

running from boredom, Type

early success.

friend to Bermuda.

CAUGHT

BY

WHAT YOU

ARE RUNNING FROM.

UFE-STYIIS: RUNNERS, FIGHTERS, In the years

On

I

have known Lance

more than

have never seen him bored.

He

that broke

when

horseplay.

three

irritated

No

The

No

noise.

in

mind

two places

children

visit for a

No

feeling,

hilarious giggling

seldom

relaxes.

I

He

climate.

adults.

little

Every two or

drains out of him, like water from

During these times he redoubles

and the business

at once.

(from a marriage

no enthusiasm, no reason

voice becomes clipped

is

few days, he seems

and he looks gray For two or three weeks he

a robot

for

sits still

His

children behave like

months Lances energy

a tub,

his

up two years ago) and

distracted

fidgeting

seems perpetually to be

the rare occasions

he never

you'll find

without

minutes

fifteen

always racing

No

I

39

the surface he seems to have escaped ennui. But look deeper.

Follow him around for a week and

On

AND HIDERS

his

efforts

for at

acts like

being

alive.

work.

His

worries about the company's stock

Even during the best of times he

have never heard him laugh from deep

in his

belly

Type B

boredom -prone

personalities are

escapers. Their encounter with

boredom

They

than an unconscious level

is

rather than

on

a

boredom-

conscious rather

usually admit they're sometimes

bored but not often depressed They tolerate boredom much better than anxiety and aggression,

and are not threatened by

inactivity or lack of intensity.

Ellen

is

fortyish, raven-haired

stint as a Time researcher

and

and

lively

A

a season in the

late starter.

After a

Peace Corps, she

decided she wanted to become a therapist and flew through graduate school in record time. There

A

FUGITIVE

IS

A PRISONER

IN

MOTION.

is

something of the waif

in

INWARD BOUND

40

—

her look

a

touch of sadness

abandonment

a fear of

in

her eyes, a hint of homelessness,

many

over from too

left

years in foster

homes. Yet her face can break out of darkness quick

as lightning

flashes across a south Florida storm front.

When

The trauma had drawn

romance.

ever bored.

When

I

"1

get very sad

an

introvert

fantasies,

I

you

guess aren't

You always

little is

I

your imagination

don't

mind

happening, and

it.

Living alone,

I

life.

There

this

is

fallowness to rest and catch intensity.

asked her

I

sleep.

1

if

she was

could be alone

it.

all

because I'm an introvert.

it's

If

dependent so much on the

own

carry around your

not afraid of the dark side of

bored But

go to

just

1

just sleep

outside world.

your

her thin.

three-year

a

don't think so," she replied. "But I'm not afraid of

weekend and you're

met her she was getting over

first

I

When I

sleep,

1

I

richness,

dream, so I'm

suppose that sometimes

are times in

okay with me.

up with

myself.

get lonely a lot

my

life

In fact, 1

need

I

am

when very I

need the from

relief

more than

I

get

bored."

So there

are

two major

styles in dealing

with boredom:

tiiders

Runners and Warriors

Type A

Type B

personalities

Live with high degree of

Live

personalities

more

passively or responsively

aggression, anxiety, activity and

with

little stress

and low tolerance

have

a

stress,

for

boredom

or intensity and

higher tolerance for

boredom.

Tendency toward mania.

Tendency toward depression.

Extroverts.

Introverts.

You

ARE NEVER OLD UNTIL

YOU START

RETIRING.

LIFE-STYLES:

RUNNERS, FIGHTERS, AND HIDERS

Tend to break through make decisions, take

Tend

barriers,

action,

41

to remain within comfortable

limits

and avoid being

More

incur guilt Their dis-ease

outstanding

springs from their constant

suffer

doing

risk definitive action

shame

likely to

for their failure to

Their

dis-

vacuum what they have not done ease springs from the

They

try always to

stay

They

be optimistic,

on the sunny

side,

are

more accustomed

to the

ups and downs, are acquainted

think

with the blues

positively

in the

night and

the dark nights of the soul.

No

matter which

is

your

dealing with danger and of experience forces

you

style,

will

need to find

boredom Avoidance

a

way

of

of the darker side

boredom underground, where

it

then erupts

as violence, depression, or disease

Since there

home

is

with blue

no avoiding

it,

let's

go deeper

Mondays and black moods

until

we

feel at

CHAPTER

4

A MAP FOR PSYCHONAUTS

Or just

Are you bored?

tired?

Or

lonely?

Or

depressed?

How near are you to despair? Are you more angry or apathetic? Exactly what

do you

feel?

Surprisingly a majority of people cannot give exact answers to

these questions.

Most of us

dealing with our

are not experts either at identifying or

own emotions

We frequently mistake or repress

awareness of our most intimate responses to other people and situations.

knowing

you

it

You may be But your

body

habitually feel but

will

bored,

or depressed without

always register what you

feel

do not acknowledge resentment, an

or other psychosomatic of expressing your anger

Your

angry,

symptom

will

appear

as a substitute

Have you noticed how

best- kept secrets are

often,

If

ulcer

way

when you

those you keep from yourself.

A AdAP FOR PSYCHONAUTS

43

have a miserable cold, you remember you were

silently

your husband or depressed about your work

days before you

for

angry

at

came down with the cold?

The "negative"

from boredom to despair are

feelings that range

As we go deeper into night

particularly difficult to identify clearly.

country,

become

gets

it

lethargic

increasingly darker,

and

dull, lulled to sleep

and further

wrong. But what

is

By the time we drop are shut

living.

by the monotony of our

we descend

into

and

will.

paralysis of awareness is it?

into despair

and edge toward

We can't remember what made us

down.

we found

boredom we

simple

chronic boredom and depression

situation. In

agitated confusion

Something

in

the courage to

make

decisions, or

happy, or

what made

—

the "descent into

The "pit and the pendulum,"

on

life

worth

Obscurity, confusion, self-encapsulation, the gradual clos-

ing in of our horizons

in

we how

suicide,

hell."

these are the defining characteristics of

the walls close

us.

To move away from your dis-ease, you must first find out where you are The healing process begins when you identify the feeling of discomfort and name the dis-ease. In many primitive tribes the shaman (those early psychotherapists whom we disparagingly call witch doctors) who was called on to cure a sick person would go into a trance, travel to the "underworld," and discover the the sufferer.

name

of the evil spirit or

Knowing

demons. Our

the

modem

name gave

equivalent

is

demon

that

the shaman

was troubling

power over the

the inward-bound journey,

plunging into the chaos of our unconscious, clarifying our feelings,

and gaining

into our inner

country so

To

BE

—

world

we can

WHOLE

in-sight.

By shining the

introspection

travel there

RE /MEMBER

YOUR

—

light of

^we illuminate the night

without undue

PARTS.

awareness

fear.

We

free

INWAkD BOUND

44

ourselves from tiresome efforts to maintain an

we can

intensity so

artificial level

of

escape boredom, as well as the threat that

depression will descend on us and turn us into victims.

we

Before

can look closely

experience of boredom,

dark

feelings, fatigue,

at the

we have

elements that make up the

to locate

it

in relation to

despair, apathy, suicide.

We need a map of the "negative," passive

emotions that lead us deeper into darkness and

captivity.

Imagine that the road into the night country begins

and gradually

circle

downward Each

spirals

road takes us a stage deeper into the appears that suicide

horizons shrink.

is

the only

pit of despair,

way out. As

who

person

are increasingly

keeps circling

was

downward

spiral

where

it

—

more compulsive. all

the faculties of

weak and circumscribed The

downward becomes

gradually

more

Someone caught

self-encapsulated, rigid, alienated, self-obsessed. in this

wide

the circles tighten, our

Imagination, feeling, thinking, sensation, will

—

in a

revolution of the

We become more constricted,

the personality

other

monotony, chronic boredom, depression,

resembles the mythical Suicircle bird that

said to fly at ever-increasing speeds in ever-diminishing

circles until Let's

it

finally flew

up

its

carry the analogy of a

we can

own

map

and

ass

of emotions a step further.

chart the "negative" emotions and

country,

we

died.

make

a

map

If

of night

should be able to trace the outlines of the "positive"

emotions.

Maps and

are useful only

religion alike

if

you want

to take a journey. Philosophy

have pictured the authentic

life

as a heroic

journey into the depths and heights, the descent into ascent of the holy mountain

had the

a

In the old days,

hell,

when every

the

tribe

revealed religion and authoritative books and priests,

maps

for

life

—

were given each child

PSYCHONAUTS NEED MAPS OF INNER

SPACE.

the

Ten Command-

45

A tAAP FOR PSYCHONAUTS

ments and the Law of Moses, the Sermon on the Mount, the Eightfold Path of Buddhism traditional religious

maps

In

purpose

life

is

a

wide-

lose the

lost in the wilderness of

confusing

New gurus and political messiahs step in and give the

Saddam

Hussein, Reverend

maps Which of them can we

Why

is

journey that has a point, a goal, or a

most desperate something to believe Jones,

map we

But without a

We wander aimlessly,

experiences

There

are being questioned

spread doubt and confusion

confidence that

the twentieth century, these

Marx,

in

Moon

—

Hitler, Castro,

all

trust?

not begin with yourself? With your

thoughts, intuitions, sensations?

pose of your

life?

What

Jim

offer us official

What

is

own

emotions,

the meaning and pur-

should you do?

Nature-God-Life intends something through you You are a part of an evolving,

trustworthy place to find of things

is

The most

cosmic adventure

how you may

fit

direct

into the overall

your own experience Your emotions

will

and

scheme

provide you

with a compass to guide you on your journey Discovering the path that will lead you toward a meaningful and rich

something

like

the

game we played

—

clues

^"You're getting

warmer

overarching meaning of

life

Now

for

it

they gave us

you're getting colder."

remains a mystery.

It

is

someone hid

as children:

something and when we went to hunt

life

will

The

always be

we can tell when we are getting closer or farther away from our own individual paths into the heart of the mystery by consulting our own feelings and dreams. Once we have a map of the emotions, any emotion can serve as a compass by which we may find our location. Here we will hidden. But

focus

on boredom, because

it is

a biological

warning

signal, direct

feedback from the cosmos and your inner guidance system, that

Nature gave you a compass for your journey.

46

INWARD BOUND

something you are doing

yawn and

turn to lead,

is

not right for you.

When you begin

you have immediate evidence

not engaged, interested, employed. Your potential

The promise

used.

Boredom slightly

of your

life is

a gentle signal

is

painful

respond to the

very poor

listener)

are

not being

Nature gets your attention by the listlessness

perhaps premature death.

If

you

If

stronger ones will follow

pain, mild illness, despair, life-threatening illness, a

you

being broken.

caused by

agitation

first signal,

that is

to

don't

—

depression,

and

(if

you

are

you become an

expert at identifying and dealing with boredom, you can correct

your course through

Think of boredom

life

as

before you have gone seriously astray.

biocosmic beeper, alerting you that

a

something more engaging awaits out of the

if

you have the courage

swamp where your journey

has

to

move

become bogged down

To examine boredom and its immediate psychological neighbors, we need to sketch a very rough map of both the downward spiraling road into night country

Remember

light.

The

fluid

that

It

can hop,

skip,

moment, although the map precautions,

I

offer this life

literally is

is

toward the misleading.

not bound to walk

and jump from despair to joy places

them

map. Warning!

hazardous to your

Boredom means you

spiral

maps and metaphors can be

and always miraculous psyche

straight lines.

taken

and the ascent

far apart

Any map

spiritual health.

are slightly off course.

in

in a

With due

or metaphor

—

Wonder

^]oy

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