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Bored for years Do you hate your life No, not quite. Are you rather disappointed that you can’’t be doing something more interesting or entertaining Yes, definitely. If you are in such a state of mind, you are suffering from boredom. According to an online dictionary, the definition of boredom is "the feeling of being bored by something tedious". Although almost all of us sometimes suffer from boredom, but hardly anyone begin to think about the old problem from a philosophical point of view except Lars Svendsen. Lars Svendsen was bored. The 28-year-old Norwegian philosopher found himself with nothing to do one day. Other people might phone a friend or go to a movie. Being a philosopher, Svendsen began to get interested in boredom — where it comes from, why it happens and what role it plays in our lives. The results are now in his book, the "Philosophy of Boredom". Although boredom is something that we have all suffered from at some point in our lives, and has become one of the central preoccupations of our age, very few of us can explain precisely what it is. In this book Lars Svendsen examines the nature of boredom, how it originated, its history, how and why it afflicts us, and why we cannot seem to overcome it by any act of will. Let’’s look at some of the book reviews: "This book discusses boredom firmly placed within specific historical and geographical bounds; all examples presented come from a Western tradition, broadly speaking. To name but a few of the philosophers analysed, the range spans from Aristotle and Seneca, via Pascal, to Kant, Hegel, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, and on to Benjamin, Heidegger, Habermas and Adorno. It relies extensively on examples from European and U.S. literature spanning a wide historical breadth, from Paul the Apostle to Holderlin and Mann, from Dostoevsky, Beckett, and Pessoa to American Psycho (Andy Warhol, Iggy Pop, and the movie Crash are also mentioned). In short, this book is firmly about Western boredom. In this, it is not alone. What makes it special is its focus on the philosophical understanding of boredom as a problem of modernity.. .What can a book on the philosophy of boredom contribute to anthropology This book presents both a philosophy and a history of the concept of boredom in the West-excellent reference points for the anthropologist interested in boredom. The book is divided into four parts. The first is concerned with The Problem of Boredom, looking at typologies of boredom, and the associations between boredom and a number of related issues: meaning, modernity, work, leisure, novelty, and death. The second part, Stories of Boredom, covers boredom as dealt with in literature (and film), from pre-modern forms such as acedia, via Boredom, Body, Technology and Transgression, to Andy Warhol’’s renunciation of personal meaning. The third part, The Phenomenology of Boredom, is a careful outline and a convincing critique of Heidegger’’s understanding of boredom. Lastly, part four, The Ethics of Boredom, examines boredom’’s own moral. Throughout, the book considers contemporary boredom from a number of different angles but always as linked to moderity through developments set in train during Romanticism.. .Svendsen ponders the significance of childhood and youth being fairly ’’recent’’ social constructs and the effects on a society that emphasises youth over maturity. Arguing that the Western self is inextricably linked to ideals of Romanticism, he says "we are suspended somewhere between childhood and maturity, in an eternal adolescence — and adolescence is stuffed with boredom. This is one explanation for the ubiquity of boredom in modern life I have not come across before, and one giving food for thought and inviting anthropological investigations of ideas of personhood and ideas of boredom." When people are bored time seems to stretch out endlessly. In fact, the first recorded use of the word in English or any other European language was in the year 1760. Westerners have been bored for exactly 245 years. The word "interesting" was first used around the same time. The date is significant because it connects the beginning of boredom with the start of the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Before then, it seems that life was neither interesting nor boring. Life was just life. The peasant thought of himself as part of the countryside. The craftsman worked from home, mixing his occupation with his family and friends. Many thousands of people were just struggling to stay alive. It was in 1764 that James Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny and James Watt invented the steam engine. These two revolutionary machines tore the peasant from his creative self-sufficiency and substituted machine-work for handiwork. When Europe began to modernize, this arrangement changed. The invention of new machines and processes made it more efficient to organize work as something separate. The long, boring day at the office or factory began. This also meant that time was created when people had nothing to do. This also became known as leisure time. Industries came into being that created products and services with which people could fill the space in their lives using the money they had earned doing boring work. Work in the 19th century duly became unbelievably boring and tedious, and has remained so ever since. Modern consumerism provides an arsenal of weapons to alleviate boredom. The rise of individualism also helps to create the sense of boredom. In the past, people felt that their happiness was linked with the well being of the community. In the modern age, people feel that they have a right to be entertained. They have been working all day in boring jobs and want some fun. This seemed to have separated entertainment form work. It is also interesting to learn that the concept of "interesting" emerged at roughly the same time. Before 1760, we neither classified things as being "boring" nor "interesting". Perhaps the concept of individualism was not sufficiently developed for man to presume to judge one way or the other. Things and people are interesting because they are different from other people and things. But there are millions of people who want entertainment. It is not possible to write a book or make a film that suits every individual. Instead, we have books, films and other entertainment products that are the same for everyone. And this standardization contributes to the idea that life is boring. We run away from boredom, but it always seems to catch up. Svendsen thinks we should stop running. "Being bored is one of our most important sources of motivation," he says. "Those who never learn that existence includes some boredom will spend their whole lives trying to flee it. And then boredom will control their whole lives. " He used the punk movement as an example of the positive power of boredom. Punk started in the UK in the 1970s, when thousands of bored urban youths began to make their own music, create their own clothing, self-publish magazines and books and start all kinds of small cultural enterprises. The results were often bad. But it is more interesting to make bad music than to listen to good music. And there is nothing more boring than a group of people sitting around waiting for someone to do something interesting. This is also why teenagers and young people seem to be more bored than everyone else, even though most of the entertainment business exists to serve them. Teenagers have to listen to their parents and teachers. Teenagers do not have financial independence. Teenagers are not in control of their lives. There is probably no way to end boredom without changing the whole of the society. Then we can all have an interesting time trying to find something to eat. Therefore, in the end of this book, Svendsen seems to say that boredom is just something we’’ve got to live with. Some people are more prone to it than others. Svendsen sees it as principally a psychological condition, "The problem of boredom has no solution", says Svendsen. "But you can change the problem by accepting that existence includes a lot of boredom. In the depth of boredom, you are thrown back upon yourself. It is a good source of self knowledge." Accept boredom. It might make you a more interesting person. Very few people sometimes suffer from boredom, a feeling of disappointment that one cannot be doing something more interesting and entertaining.