If you’re curious, I write these missives by the clock. Not at a specific time, obviously, but for a specific length of time: ten minutes.
Sometimes I go longer (rarely) and occasionally I run out of steam before the timer is up. But it’s ten minutes, give or take, for each of these updates. I’m not sure why I chose ten minutes other than that it felt very doable, a length of time long enough to write something of substance but not so long that I would feel overwhelmed by the prospect.
Which is a long lead in to the thoughts that occupied my mind this morning on my walk: how to deal with the dual onslaught of feeling both overwhelmed and bored.
For instance, the walk this morning was the same one Keely and I have taken for over four years now, nearly every day. We circle Lake Ella with minor variations but stoic consistency. So, honestly, it’s a bit boring. This is why I generally listen to audio books or podcasts while walking, to keep my mind engaged just enough that I don’t sit down and weep out of boredom. Yet there is often a feeling of being overwhelmed as well, of feeling emotionally strung out so that listening to some topics (true crime, news updates, politics in general) just lead to me weeping on the sidewalk. Sub-optimal effect, in the end.
Non-fiction audio books do well, and I’ve really enjoyed many of the Great Courses lectures I’ve listened to via Audible. Still, some days it is all just too much.
This morning was a see-saw of a emotions, and I ended up listening to a Freakonomics podcast on, appropriately, boredom. I thought about the fact that boredom, for me, is less a state of being than an emotion. Am I bored all the time, or never bored of anything? I can’t rightly tell.
Keely, above such concerns, simply wanders along sniffing bushes.
Here, have some flowers. They are not boring and are also a sign that spring is now in progress. Take your allergy meds!
