Proving Patient

Patricia Meyer Spacks in Boredom references

Adam Phillips, discussing boredom as a possible "developmental achievement" for children, observes that "it is one of the most oppressive demands of adults that the child should be interested. ... Boredom is integral to the process of taking one's time." [ellipsis in Spacks]

The reference is to Adam Phillips On Kissing, Tickling, and Being Bored: Psychoanalytic Essays on the Unexamined Life.

Into these considerations one might introduce a nuance and contrast being bored by with being bored with. Boredom in the company of others and boredom by oneself, in either case the cure may not be to recapture one's time but to arrive at an understanding of time as not being a possession but a frame, that is to truly take one's time is to go slow.

Boredom signals a shift in attention regardless of one's relation, possessive or otherwise, to time. To sink into the boredom and appreciate its charms is indeed to go slow.

And so for day 225
27.07.2007