âAt the same time, I believe that the argument about boredom has to be somewhat nuanced. It is certainly true that one could feel almost nostalgic for Boredom 1.0. The dreary void of Sundays, the night hours after television stopped broadcasting, even the endless dragging minutes waiting in queues or for public transport: for anyone who has a smartphone, this empty time has now been effectively eliminated. In the intensive, 24/7 environment of capitalist cyberspace, the brain is no longer allowed any time to idle; instead, it is inundated with a seamless flow of low-level stimulus.â
Yet boredom was ambivalent; it wasnât simply a negative feeling that one simply wanted rid of. For punk, the vacancy of boredom was a challenge, an injunction and an opportunity: if we are bored, then it is for us to produce something that will fill up the space. Yet, it is through this demand for participation that capitalism has neutralised boredom. Now, rather than imposing a pacifying spectacle on us, capitalist corporations go out of their way to invite us to interact, to generate our own content, to join the debate. There is now neither an excuse nor an opportunity to be bored.
(âŠ)
Perhaps the feeling most characteristic of our current moment is a mixture of boredom and compulsion. Even though we recognise that they are boring, we nevertheless feel compelled to do yet another Facebook quiz, to read yet another Buzzfeed list, to click on some celebrity gossip about someone we donât even remotely care about. We endlessly move among the boring, but our nervous systems are so overstimulated that we never have the luxury of feeling bored. No one is bored, everything is boring.â
Mark Fisher, No One Is Bored, Everything Is Boring
Meghann Foye, 38, was jealous of co-workers clocking out for maternity leave, and decided she needed a break of her own. Here, the author of the novel âMeternityâ (Mira, out now), tells The Postâs âŠ
bahahahahahah there has never been a less âmeâ focused time of my life than my maternity leave. I was focused on my little lamprey of a baby every minute of every day. The dishes didnât get done, my career didnât get furthered, books didnât get read, my hair barely got washed. I took care of a tiny small human 24/7. There were days when I would just sit on the couch at 430 with tears in my eyes hanging onto the baby waiting to shove her into my husbands arms the minute he walked home so I could just not hold her for awhile. There wasnât anything wrong, I wasnât depressed or anything, it was just really hard and frequently really boring.
Returning to work was, for me, a return to myself. I miss my baby like CRAZY. itâs INSANE. I miss her to a degree I didnât think was possible. But I am also my own human again for the 8 hours weâre apart. I can go for a walk, eat a meal with two hands, run into the grocery without having to wrangle a baby. I talk to grown ups! I further my career. I take on challenging projects! I could even go for a run during my lunch break. thatâs me time, and I treasure it.
There was NOTHING me about my maternity leave. I would love a âmeâternity too! Maternity leave is not a gift we give women to hang out at home, itâs a compromise weâve come up with to allow women to work while also producing more humans. On my âmeâternity, I would start my calligraphy business, and I would do freelance legal research, and I would run 4 miles a day. But thatâs not maternity leave, particularly not when itâs just 12 weeks.Â
I also know that the vast majority of humans, parents or otherwise, know this. Raising a child is work, maternity leave isnât a vacation, and we all want 3 months paid to just dick around, but that doesnât happen unless you move to Denmark probably.Â
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