No more repeating commitments. No more performance anxiety. We learn to get bored and enjoy the benefits of boredom. With some caveats
Boredom scares us. We perceive it as an inner malaise, a condition of discomfort, with which we find it difficult to live. Life becomes dark, in the dim light of a sense of emptiness and abandonment, and we end up in the vortex of anxiety, a compulsion to move, to do something. A real waste of energy and emotion. Boredom breaks through in the field of depression, and sometimes it represents only a daily mask, difficult to remove.
In literature, great writers (I mention one for all: Alberto Moravia) have recounted the man devoured by boredom, and I happened to meet accomplished, rich people with a good career in progress, however afflicted by the boredom virus. They are really difficult to date, they have no peace. They transmit anxiety, they always have the frenzy to change places and company. They do not enjoy the pleasure of any stable moment of the day. They can't draw a breath without turning it into a gasp of stress.
Long live boredom. Long live the rediscovery of something that we have lost in the era of haste, of performance anxiety, of wanting to do everything immediately, and of the times of super speed imposed by the technological domain. Long live boredom which relaxes, allows us to detach, helps us distance ourselves from anxiety and stress and accompanies us to a more sober and more serene lifestyle. A positive boredom, constructive and not demeaning and pessimistic. Long live boredom, for adults and children. For grandparents who experience the fatigue of aging and for children who are in a frenzy of growth. Many believe that inactivity is bad and can trigger the vicious cycle of laziness. In reality, idleness stimulates creativity. It reduces stress and tension and helps us cultivate new ideas. Does this mean we have to become idle? Absolutely not, rather let's re-evaluate the value and sense of boredom. Boredom obsesses us, it scares us, and we always feel it lurking. Sometimes we try to avoid it even by taking refuge in the virtual world, but in this case the remedy can be worse than the disease, because boredom is associated with a sense of loneliness. And we are even frightened by the risk that our children might get bored: a useless and wrong fear.
I will not let these tears go to waste
I will use them to water the most beautiful of gardens
And give you that smile that shines like the sun
Because you are both stormy and peaceful
You are strength but also a lot of fragility
Like petals and thorns
Now you are rain but soon you will become rainbow
Each color is an emotion
Beautiful and happy
Ugly and sad
Like the keys of a piano
Black and white
All make up the symphony of each day
A different melody every time
But this is called living
Every tree is born inside our heart, branches inside our head, takes root in our stomach. Its sap is our blood. We are living trees. Our heart will branch out giving flowers and fruits. Our body will expand giving life. Each gem will be the future. Each root will be love. Our heart is a strong tree.
Touching a tree has always been a powerful, symbiotic, ancestral, alive gesture for me and through it I live, I am reborn, I flourish again: I become a cathedral in a cathedral. The rain wets you, the winter transforms you, I dress in your green, I dress in leaves of the past and the future. You tree taught me to remain serene, to shed my sap, to become air and flowers.If you want to know something infinitely intimate about a person, you have to see how he moves, what he surrounds himself with, what music he listens to, what he reads or writes to himself, his photos, his drawings, his silences … the light blind that crosses it. I went from one piece of news to another while observing human history, it always fills with amazement, and I found a drawing by Mandela. Yes. Just him. Scrolling through many of his thoughts, African villages, dazzling suns and flying doves, I understood that all the people who fight for something big have the gaze of a child. Only with eyes so amazed by everything that surrounds them, from simple things and with an open mind to filter beauty, can you pursue such impossible paths and sometimes manage to confuse reality with a splendid dream. I was struck by the drawing of a Tree because I prefer them too, with strong roots, long and imperfect branches, filled with small leaves, knots and hollows for animals … The tree, you can draw it, photograph it, you can sit under it, climb it, observe it while it lets itself be embraced by the wind, offer shelter, shade, devour the bad air and send it back clean … in short, the tree is a example of inner light, of freedom that respects others. Mandela knew it, a heart cannot get out of its space but aims high and finds the light, just like a Tree.
I watched that small, lonely piece of ash that had managed to escape from the fire that burned relentlessly, slowly turning the wood into simple and useless ash. It was still glowing, still bright orange, and rising slowly, skyward, and then … Poof. To disappear. It was a simple pre-Christmas evening, the people in the square, the fire lit near the Christmas tree, the songs that resounded in the main streets, the lights … Wherever you could breathe the air of celebration, wherever you turned you meet us looks happy and bright smiles. Children scurried along the sidewalks, competing to see who could get on the train first. I was there, in front of the lit fire, admiring the beauty of my small town, in the arms of those who, with a simple glance, could make me feel butterflies in my stomach. There was silence between us, we weren’t talking because there was no need: our intertwined hands, looks and smiles said everything; said it all the sweet kisses we exchanged, light and slow, which managed to drive me crazy in any case. I turned to look at him, and once again I lost myself in those hazel eyes, so bright and cheerful, so deep, in which I continually drowned, losing the strength and the will to resist. I ran my gaze on his face: from the eyes I looked on the nose, then on the lips, so beautiful to kiss, and on the cheeks, so soft and warm … I returned to rest my gaze on his eyes, which were now staring at me have fun, managing to get me a sincere smile, once again. I love. I love him immensely. It was the last thing I thought before I captured her lips and lost myself in a breathtaking kiss.I am a person without balance, but I can keep calm in difficult situations, I can fix things in chaos. I like music and I know it. I could dedicate many songs to you, I already do. I like flowers, you don’t need to give me bunches of chips or crumpled cats. I have big eyes. I like books, I like reading and caressing them. Girls who like books are cute, they are more dreamers. I sleep a lot. It might be a flaw, but you sleep a lot too! We could wake up together, always. I like photos, I like taking them. I’d take lots of pictures! I like traveling. I would go anywhere, any place. And not everyone would, would they? I’m not afraid. We climb a mountain, we enter a dark tunnel from which we cannot see the exit, we enter an abandoned hospital at night, I am not afraid. It doesn’t take me long to get ready, at most an hour! Think of all those girls who go to the bathroom five hours a day before going out! I like tattoos. I would like to tattoo the world on me. Sexy! I leave the house even without makeup. I’m simple! I look beyond, I go beyond. I make war with my prejudices, I stop even in front of a crumb to understand what else is there. I see things, even the smallest, before others. I like motorcycles, I like racing. I like the sea and also the mountains. I know how to listen and I like to do it. I am a friend, a lover, a girlfriend. I could be many other things. I love poems. I love to write. I love you, choose me.We often ask ourselves “What will I do without him?” and you feel lost, but I have a perfectly detailed answer to this question. First of all, my pride will allow me to remain standing. Head held high, eyes sharp. I will no longer make any pathetic speeches, I have understood that there is no magic word that can convince a person who no longer loves you to love you, on the contrary, while you will tell him that he is everything to you, that will be the very phrase that will convince him that he doesn’t want you. So I will remain impassive, I will walk away without a word as if I don’t care. I want to be remembered like this, with the doubt if I loved you or not. Doubts remain forever. One night you will think about it, you will look at the empty part of the bed and I assure you that you will think of me. I also hope to be dressed well that day, with my usual strong smile and that you will have some hesitation in leaving someone like me. Because yes, I’ve learned not to demean myself, not to think that the person I’m with is doing me a favor as if I were a dead weight. I always remember that I chose a man among many other men, never because “he can stand me / he is the only one who loves me / I feel alone”. And if the coli that I have chosen will go away I will return to my life. What will I do without him? I will return to my weekends with other friends, there is no doubt about that. On TV they will broadcast the films seen together and I will be taken by nostalgia. I will want to send him a message but I will not. I will write but not to him, I will write for myself. If he leaves me it is not true that I will not know what to do, I will create commitments. Life will go on, I’ll be studying or looking for work, at this age you can’t say that you don’t want to go to school because you are heartbroken, you have to get up and look for your autonomy, bring big sunglasses with you and stay in the midst of people as if nothing had happened. It happens, I’ll tell myself. It has already happened and it continues anyway. If she leaves me the next day, I’ll still be beautiful. If he leaves me I will read the sentences I have underlined from the books that have always helped me after the finished stories, if he will let me I will breathe again, if he will let me I will have more time for other things to do. Nothing too poetic then. “What would you do if he left you?” People make it too melodramatic. People say they would die from it but then the next day they are still there. People say they will never fall in love again and then fall in love again. People of this era then change status from “single” to “officially engaged” with incredible ease. People just like to say romantic phrases they don’t believe in, but I’ve never tried to be a sensitive person and so I’ll tell you that without him tomorrow I’ll get up at six in the morning and do what I do now, only at the evening I will not be able to tell anyone and I will miss that one, but one day I will not feel nostalgia for it anymore. I will find other people to tell it to. This is how it works even if at first it seems impossible for everyone. It works that one night you fall asleep because you are sleepy, and not because you have cried too much. It works that one day you will meet other eyes but you will still be too in love with the memories and you will let it go .. But trust me, that soon, someone will say something so interesting that you will start listening and falling in love again. It works that if he leaves you you live the same.
Who called you to life? Where does your drawing come from? From which galaxy lost? When, why, are you coming? What theater, what scenes, what glow of the Pleistocene? Did you see the crash of milk and blood stamp your face with your name? Where have the roses gone, the nobility of defeat? Where is who invented things, the telescope, the stilt house? Where is who invented the wheel, the double basses and the trombones? Where is the one who tamed the flames, who measured the seasons? I will postpone any healthy conclusion until tomorrow, and I lock this beautiful asshole face of mine in my arms. curse!
When they were together she felt out of time. There was no longer any inconvenient past to hide, there was no future to think about and, for a moment, the present seemed like a sweet honeymoon embroidered between the meshes of space and time.
Just do it. Wear that dress too tight. Let your hair down. Get up and dance. Find reasons to laugh. Make love. Create something beautiful. Speaks. Recognize your worth. Don’t apologize for your magic anymore and stop hiding your light. Beloved. Forgive yourself. Make room for the unexpected. Stop waiting for the right time, do it now. Ignore what people think of you. Because in the end you will have to answer for all the things you didn’t say, the people you didn’t love, the things you didn’t do and the places you didn’t go. Do it now.
We are the ones that the night swallows, those that the sound pushes away the unlit lights come on we fly over the extinguished flames We are the ones who lost their wings while they were not flying We are light as feathers and we listen to the wind. We are the ones who don’t dream at night, sleep doesn’t touch them, life doesn’t even touch them. We are free from any vulgar emotion. We walked with Arthur while he wrote, and we were crazy, and he screamed. But we are no longer the poets of the past, with drugs in ink. We saw the world as it became and we hated it until we didn’t write anymore
THE PRODIGY OF IDEAS 