Too Bored for Your Own Good

Phil Patton collects plastic coffee lids '" the disposable kind. Flimsy plastic lids fill his house, are in glass cases nailed to his wall. He has written dissertations about them, books. If you want, he'll come to your university or company to talk about them. You don't even have to pay him.

His collection of plastic lids was put on display at the Cincinnati Museum of art. And the Museum of Modern Art . Scholars have pontificated on them. One conducted years of research and concluded that our affinity for disposable plastic coffee lids was Freudian and the raised plastic lip an adult substitution for our mother's breast. I just spent 15 minutes reading about it.

We have all had way too much time to think about this.

Just how bored are we? How little does there have to be to keep us busy for us to start pontificating on the philosophical implications of garbage? Apparently this little. As little as there is to do right now.

Everything is mechanized. We don't even have to walk to the store to pick up our prepackaged food. Our water comes straight from the tap. All of our entertainment comes to us, right in front of the couch. That's freed up a lot of spare time.

And it's making us sick.

We, as a species, just don't do well with all that free time; psychologically. I mean, sure, we create beautiful works of art (some of us). But we also cut our ears off because we have too much free time to listen to the voices in our heads. And sure, schizophrenia is another matter entirely. But no one who's spent their lives plowing a field from dawn 'Ëœtil dusk ever had the spare time to develop an anxiety disorder; or an attention deficit; or a narcissistic personality.

And it's not just us. Have you ever really taken a good look at your pet hamster running around and around his cage? You think it's cute. But it's really his brain short circuiting. He's programmed (much like us) to spend every waking hour of the day foraging for food, running from predators and romancing lady hamsters. And you've stuck him in a smooth glass box. He's bored to death. So bored that his brain has broken and now all he can do is run around aimlessly. He's probably screaming. You just can't hear him.

We get so bored that our brain starts to feed on itself: we over analyze our every thought...start examining the cultural ramifications of trash. And we aren't the only animals that suffer from this modern malaise. Our pets get so bored in our concrete boxes, they self mutilate: they gnaw at their paws and lick themselves compulsively. Animals in the zoo pace, rock back and forth, lick themselves compulsively and pull out their own feathers.

Cows don't get bored. They don't. You've never seen a cow showing any sign of stress. They just stand around, chewing their cud, waiting patiently for something to eat them. And if you're reading this and you have no idea what I'm talking about you are ether vocationally and avocationally stimulated (congratulations) or your brain just isn't that active. Consider yourself lucky. The cow is lucky enough to be made a finite, highly edible being and blessed with the brain chemistry to be perfectly OK with that.

Most of the rest of us need something to occupy most of the 16 or so hours that we're awake.

In lieu of something stimulating however, there's always exercise. A quick jog every morning will render you calm and placid and ready to spend 8 or so hours in your particle board cubicle farm playing solitaire and watching the fluorescent lights flicker.

So there's that.