Boredom

It is the great devourer.

Every resource is exhaustible. If it inspires, it is only for now. Music is the most frequent culprit. Some series of sounds will access some hidden trigger deep within my person. The thrill is indescribable. I will chase that thrill. I will become engorged with that sound until the process becomes predictable. Each note expected, each lilt and lyric and wobble wrung dry. It gives now only a stale sort of pleasure. It is agreeable and nothing more. I therefore chase novelty, forever seeking newness and all that it offers. It is the same with fiction.

It is the same with people.

It’s an awful thing to say, I know. I must specify that this is not the case with all people. Those closest, who have penetrated to the inner circle through time or some unspecified set of unknown variables (see Magic Spells), are not subject to this brand of fatigue. For the rest, though, they simply wear out. We will be out somewhere and suddenly I know what you will say next. I know what you will say after that. It’s like realizing that, half asleep, you have begun watching a movie that you’d seen before. I turn it off and go to bed.

Strangely, this relates to alcohol.

For many years I would regularly go out and drink to excess. I would do this even knowing the horrific repercussions that faced me the next day. I would do this even during the KotB period when I think sleep deprivation brought me fairly close to madness. What I was warring against was my own behavior. I knew what I would do next and I hadn’t the choice to turn that particular movie off. There was no novelty and so there was no excitement. The trigger could not be flipped.

Pickling myself in alcohol meant that I was unsure of what would happen. I mean, of course, drinking until the governor went off-line. I would hook up with unexpected people. I would say amazing things. I would perform acts of incalculable stupidity. The point is, I would cede control – that is, the forebrain would cede control - to some baser self. Letting go was secondary, though, to the real goal, which was to achieve unpredictability.

I do not recommend this practice. It’s a miracle I didn’t die. Most people go through a phase of rampant substance abuse, typically alcohol, but are content to dismiss it as youthful caprice or questionable stress management. I think there’s something more at work here. It certainly warrants analysis.