◊ Listening to Boredom (continued)
It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who we are. We face surprises. And disappointments. The crucial fact is that we are different from anybody we know and admire…. It takes all one’s courage to be the person one is, fulfilling one’s odd and unique possibilities.
~ M.C. Richards ~
The Fear of Self-Exploration (continued.)
The fear of self-exploration resides in the buried dread that what we will find will be either too much or too little to bear. The difficult and deliberate work of living maturely and soulfully, of becoming who we are intended by God to be, includes bringing to awareness the pain and the promise of our lives. Sometimes self-exploration means feeling the unconscious anxiety aroused by the suspicion that if we dare to stop and listen to the boredom we try so hard to drown out, that we will have to face ourselves truthfully, and in doing so discover that the cupboards of our being are bare. Other times self-exploration means discovering our promise and potential. Though it involves the courage to confront our own complicity in having kept our gifts buried, this gives way to the feeling of exhilaration or delight. We awaken to the realization that we are indeed gifts and gifted. We awaken to the realization that we are not only called but capable of living expansive lives. This awareness triggers another one, namely, the opportunity and responsibility for offering the gift of who we are to others.
One way the false self responds to boredom is by giving in to inertia and emotional numbness. It consecrates self-pity and validates the feeling that there is nothing to do by doing nothing of consequence. Another response of the false self is to act as if boredom is merely a lifestyle issue. Consequently, we fill our homes, garages, and yards with a plethora of things, stuff an inner void with external goods, cram full our days and weeks with places to go, people to see, and things to do, while ironically we remain empty and unfulfilled. This is because serious boredom is a symptom of a soul-sickness. It is not simply a matter of temporarily experiencing life as dull or uneventful. Whether it is physical, social, or emotional, persistent boredom is more than innocuous fidgetiness or depression. It is the soul trying to awaken persons enough to face and deal with the emptiness or incongruity of their lives so that they will seek more authentic ways to live into the truth of who they are and into the abundance of life itself.
Boredom does not indicate that one’s life is not interesting or exciting enough but that one’s life is not being fully realized for what it is. Boredom signals an unlived life. An unlived life almost always can be traced to the failure to see that life itself comes as a summons inviting a personal response. Not once, when we are on the brink of adulthood, but every day. Boredom suggests that persons are disconnected from their true source, from their innate and potential soulfulness, from their unique giftedness, from a worthy trajectory, as well as from their chief end. Boredom indicates a life that is neither consciously received nor intentionally lived. It is a life not seen as a precious gift, significant and ultimate, as though it were created, intended, and freely given for personal fulfillment, and for the depth, nobility, and magnanimity that enhances the life of others. Bored persons fail to see that there is something at stake in their lives and that should they not discover what’s at stake then their gift to the world as only they can give it will go ungiven.
When I was a freshman in college I had a friend who was suddenly confronted with the misuse of his life. We were not best friends but we were both on the ball team and developed the camaraderie and friendship that are part of team sports. After practices we would sometimes eat dinner together. He was fun and very bright. Either late in the spring of that year or during the summer he decided to transfer to a college that was less expensive and nearer to his family’s home. I was disappointed when I heard this. I saw him a year or so later. He seemed different, happier, calmer, a bit more self-assured and comfortable in his own skin. I asked him about what I sensed. He told me it was true. Things were different now.
My friend proceeded to tell me about his freshman year. He described a year dominated by three things: playing ball, studying, and partying, his commitment being in the reverse order. Then he told me about a party that he had attended off-campus that lasted most of one three-day weekend. Someone had a camera and made a film of what soon became a legendary event. A few weeks after the party, those who attended were invited to a private showing of the film of the weekend bash. Nonchalantly my friend joined his party-mates for the special viewing. What happened next, he said, changed his life. Like many of his friends, he was in the movie. In fact, a lot of footage was devoted to him. But unlike most of his friends, he had been so stoned on drugs and alcohol that he remembered virtually nothing about what happened that weekend. When people saw him on the screen they howled with laughter remembering his wild antics and semi-comatose condition. It was all fun to them. It was all new to him.
After the film, if you had asked them, people would have unanimously said that my friend was the life of the party, the beau of the ball, the star of the show, the man of the hour and of the now infamous weekend. He didn’t feel that way. But he didn’t tell anyone. They wouldn’t understand, he thought. They’d say he was making too much of it, that they were just having a good time, blowin’ off some steam. Nonetheless, the embarrassment was excruciating. What he felt was more than discomfiture, more than foolishness, more than being the butt of someone’s cinematic joke. What he felt was so shame-ridden, so deeply personal that it seemed to defy words. He felt utterly exposed, humiliated. Yet it wasn’t so much what others saw but what he saw. He felt repulsed. He felt loathsome toward his stoned likeness on the white-sheet screen. While everyone laughed in good college fun, inside he wept. Unbeknownst to his friends, inside he blushed red and shrunk by what he saw. What he saw was himself. And what he saw he hated. His friends simply saw that he was wasted. He saw the makings of a wasted life. He didn’t think he was funny, he thought he was pathetic, repugnant. The accolade others bestowed on him as a badge of honor was for him an emblem of shame. He left that evening secretly disgraced, deeply shaken, and dragging with him a wounded image of himself. He went on to say that this was part of the reason that he had not returned to school the next year. Though few people knew it, watching himself on screen that night in such a vulnerable, humiliating condition, had traumatized him.
Over time it did another thing to him as well. It awakened in him a conviction and determination to get off drugs, to stop drinking, and to change the trajectory and quality of his life for good. And he did – all because of what he allowed himself to see. It was the genesis of self-exploration, of looking directly and listening deeply within. Painful though it was, it set in motion a journey toward self-awareness, healing, and new purpose. When persons dare or are forced to take stock of their lives, they often discover that what they hear is not a pleasant sound and what they see is not a pretty sight. Frequently, they are compelled to admit that in fact what they hear and see is not much of anything at all except the emptiness and poverty of their vacant lives It is a sobering discovery to say the least. But to say the most, it is a transformative and liberating discovery, a gateway to self-acceptance and self-love, to intentional and significant living.
REFLECTION:
Listen to your life – what are three things and three relationships that genuinely enliven you? Be grateful. Make the commitment to cultivate what gives you life.