Boredom is…

boredom

On my daily commute to work I spotted this on N. Broadway.  Now this side of town is not without plenty of graffiti/bombs/tags but this meanders into other territory.  It’s not just a ‘tag’ but in a way someone trying to engage us and express his “boredom” with an act of creativity! Of course bored is spelled as borred, which makes one wonder as to whether this was intentional or not. And even the last “D” looks like a “b,” further changing an interpretation of this piece.

But frankly, on a purely visceral level I love this. Reminds me of all those million punk songs that sing about being young and bored. Even Søren Kierkegaard, Dutch 19th century existentialist, wrote about the nature of Boredom. For example he said in Either/Or,

Since boredom advances and boredom is the root of all evil, no wonder, then, that the world goes backwards, that evil spreads. This can be traced back to the very beginning of the world. The gods were bored; therefore they created human beings.

And also:

Boredom rests upon the nothingness that winds its way through existence

So, whoever did this is in good company in being bored…but as the Internationale Situationiste also said:

Boredom is counterrevolutionary.

OH! Who would’ve thought being bored had such existential implications!