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Single Idea 23062

[filed under theme 23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 4. Boredom ]

Full Idea

I do nothing, granted. But I see the hours pass - which is better than trying to fill them.

Gist of Idea

It is better to watch the hours pass, than trying to fill them

Source

E.M. Cioran (The Trouble with Being Born [1973], 01)

Book Ref

Cioran,E.M.: 'The Trouble with Being Born', ed/tr. Richard Howard [Penguin 2012], p.2

A Reaction

As Nietzsche would have pointed out, this came from a man who regularly wrote books. It is, though, certainly worth asking whether the way we fill our time is better than doing nothing.

The 29 ideas with the same theme [there seems to be nothing worth doing]:

2912 Plato is boring [Nietzsche on Plato]
9299 We are bored by people to whom we ourselves are boring [Rochefoucauld]
21480 Boredom is only felt by those clever enough to need activity [Schopenhauer]
21469 Human life is a mistake, shown by boredom, which is direct awareness of the fact [Schopenhauer]
9305 The plebeians bore others; only the nobility bore themselves [Kierkegaard]
21910 Our destiny is the highest pitch of world-weariness [Kierkegaard]
9306 To ward off boredom at any cost is vulgar [Nietzsche]
14844 People do not experience boredom if they have never learned to work properly [Nietzsche]
20102 Flight from boredom leads to art [Nietzsche]
20177 Boredom always involves not being fully occupied [Russell]
20179 Happiness involves enduring boredom, and the young should be taught this [Russell]
20176 Boredom is an increasingly strong motivating power [Russell]
20178 Life is now more interesting, but boredom is more frightening [Russell]
20767 Culture is now dominated by boredom, so universal it is unnoticed [Heidegger, by Aho]
23823 Life needs risks to avoid sickly boredom [Weil]
19602 You are stuck in the past if you don't know boredom [Cioran]
19641 If you lack beliefs, boredom is your martyrdom [Cioran]
19640 No one is brave enough to say they don't want to do anything; we despise such a view [Cioran]
19644 History is the bloody rejection of boredom [Cioran]
23062 It is better to watch the hours pass, than trying to fill them [Cioran]
23069 Fear cures boredom, because it is stronger [Cioran]
9300 Boredom is serious, not just uncomfortable; it threatens our psychic survival [Frankfurt]
20290 Psychopaths may just be bored, because they cannot participate in normal emotional life [Singer]
20172 Boredom destroys our ability to evaluate [Kekes]
20173 Boredom is apathy and restlessness, yearning for something interesting [Kekes]
9298 We can be unaware that we are bored [Svendsen]
9301 Boredom is so radical that suicide could not overcome it; only never having existed would do it [Svendsen]
9302 We are bored because everything comes to us fully encoded, and we want personal meaning [Svendsen]
9310 The profoundest boredom is boredom with boredom [Svendsen]