Are you getting bored?

Recently I met a friend of my friend who had come to meet her in her holidays. The visit was fun for us and her too. But at some point of time you feel that the person sitting in front of you is getting bored. Though it was the case with my friend itself, it happens many a times that we are just bored however lively the environment may be.

I think psychologically this can be expresses as a thought or a loop of thoughts coming in a person's head, which he/she outrightly wants to reject, either because the thought has a flaw, or simply because repetitive regeneration of the thought has a double psychological effect of giving a thought of 'regressiveness'. As man (and woman) being social, is also progressive continuously, the repetitive thoughts may simply be rejected as being bored.

But as a human being, you may never want to be bored. Its an alarm system from the mind to tell you that you are not being progressive. But is it that if you are not bored you are progressing? That may not be the case. Progress can happen vertically and horizontally. Horizontal progress is knowing more things / indulging in more things of the similar attitude / nature so as to bring an element of newness. Believe me, its not the kind of progress that is sustainable. Since we cannot continue to explore newer and newer environment(s) everytime (as it consumes resourses) its not sustainable. Plus, you must have access to the newer environments. This is where the concept of newness comes in.

Newness can be defined as the environment that the viewer / experiencer has never experienced before. Nor it can be experienced in the environment in which the subject mind lives. Hence to have the experience, we have to go to the newer environment. This travel can be physical or psychological. Some people claim that they never get bored doing a particular thing, say watching a TV, playing a guitar. But these experiencers may not realize that during these activities they have psychologically travelled. The TV watchers may be engrossed in the TV so much so that they may feel themselves as a part of the scene in the TV. They forget that they are sitting in the same room with the same static TV set. Guitar players may feel engrossed in music.The idea of newness has one more dimension to it. It can be transferred from one person to another. That is what is called fashion. Doing this 'in fashion', a person may never be bored. As this reflects a sense of pride in the experiencer and fills up his ego to leave no room for 'boriyat'.

The second way of progress is vertical progress, where the human being invents new dimensions or new ways of doing the same thing. A sense of newness is persistent around for the same things being done. This is the real way of progress as per me. As this represents the maturity of the person who grow with time.

So which one is better? Am I suggesting that one should pursue vertical growth (inner growth) rather than horizontal growth (external growth)? Not at all, knowing your environment and experimenting things will give a materialistic experience and that adds to the human life value too. But what enhances it the most is, how deep you go into it. That is where the crux of human progress lies.

Thats all I could bore you :)