Somewhere Over the Sun

“I’m bored’ is a useless thing to say. I mean, you live in a great, big, vast world that you’ve seen none percent of. Even the inside of your own mind is endless; it goes on forever, inwardly, do you understand? The fact that you’re alive is amazing, so you don’t get to say ‘I’m bored.” 
― Louis CK

Dear Sylas,

That about sums it up.

I think you already know that, just that one day you’ll forget. Your eyes are drawn to the contrasting colors of the ceiling fan and the white above it. You sleep, or shit, or eat. You stick your tongue out and sometimes cry. You’re starting to smile. I think, more than most people that are going about their daily lives, you know that boredom is a useless thing. A deeply lazy, counter-intuitive thing.

This isn’t a life lesson I’m passing on to you, but one you should be passing on to others. You haven’t quite yet figured out how to express yourself, so I’m giving you a hand, and hoping you’ll remember later on in life that even when you had no job, no school, no friends other than your parents, no love life, no driver’s license, no money, you were not bored. It doesn’t even occur to you to be bored, because you’re fresh to life and how amazing it is. 

 

You know what’s pretty fantastic? That there are things that bring us pleasure and that we can often do several of them at the same time. I was just eating tacos and reading, simultaneously! I know that may sound mundane to some of you, but if you think about it, it’s pretty miraculous. 

We spend a lot of time griping and focusing on the absences in our lives. We’re either poor in love or poor in wealth or poor in something else. We love throwing out if onlys and pretending that fulfilling one tiny absence will make us happy forever. And that’s okay. That’s how we’re made. We’re psychologically designed to be drawn toward negative space. But sometimes we make our lives about the absences rather than what’s already there.

But listen: have you ever driven with the windows down on a nice day? Or sung along to your favorite tune in the privacy of a hot shower? Have you ever held someone’s hand and then had the good fortune to remember it fondly? Think about all pleasures that you are afforded on a daily basis, and then think about how many of them don’t cancel each other out, how many different combinations there are of all the things you love to do. Sleeping in cuddled up to a significant other. A long, gratifying, lonely walk to your favorite breakfast place. 

Despite the many things that each of us is lacking to reach happier, idyllic versions of ourselves, we are all afforded tiny joys. And big joys. And medium-sized joys that you can wrap around other medium-sized joys. 

As Louis C.K once said, everything’s amazing, and nobody’s happy. Be happy, dear reader.