Concept of boredom

July 24th, 2023

I found a very interesting tidbit about opera singer Farinelli and his relationship with King Philip V of Spain in a book I read recently (and as I understand, there is a movie and a play on that subject as well). Farinelli, at the high of his popularity as a celebrity and most highly regarded singer, quit the highlife and popularity and moved in with King Philip V, to be his private singer. King Philip V suffered from debilitating insomnia and only four particular arias sung by Farinelli could help to ease the agony. And Farinelli sang those four particular arias every night for ten years to the king, without any other public appearances and singing.

That leads me to a question — would the same four arias repeated 3600 times get boring — to the singer and the listener?

I am asking that question because I don’t think I know anymore what boredom is. There were many years when terminally draining boredom was a thing in my life. I would get bored with things, hobbies, people, places, and such. I would get to the point that no artificial stimulation (of a legal or not-so-legal kind) would help and I would just go somewhere else, to be with somebody else, to try my hand at new things, leaving a path of desolation in my wake. All that, just to feel something, anything of any interest, to keep me occupied for a while before I started the whole process again.

For the last three years — not coincidentally, the three years since I stopped drinking — I don’t know what boredom is. And I don’t do too much. Actually, I am very judicial about what will occupy my time. I do everything little by little, switching from one to another, then going back before moving to something else. I don’t push myself to any timeline in what I do, and at the same time, I don’t beat myself up if I decide to stop doing something I no longer find interesting. I don’t run away from what I have, I don’t need to make wholesale changes — just a small adjustment here and there. That works out perfectly.