> “Automobilism is an illness, a mental illness. This illness has a pretty name: speed... [Man] can no longer stand still, he shivers, his nerves tense like springs, impatient to get going once he has arrived somewhere because it is not somewhere else, somewhere else, always somewhere else.”
Previously:
“All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”
-- Blaise Pascal (~1650)
Pascal’s quote rings differently today.
I'm curious how. We have a lot more potential distractions now, but the same inability to just be.
Some would say we should log off and take a walk outside. Meet some people in real life.
Loneliness
For some good writing on boredom, check out Joseph Brodsky’s In Praise of Boredom - a short speech from 1989.