Bounded in a nutshell

Oooh, it’s been too long since I wrote. Anything. But surely that’s one of the great things about Notes to No-one: maybe I have been neglectful – but who’s complaining? In fact, if I’ve been neglecting no-one recently, well, surely I deserve a commendation.



No place like home



Trouble is, too much stuff – that’s capital S, Stuff – builds up, and then, where do I start? And soon enough, the temptation is not to start at all … I get all caught up in Doing Stuff. Whereas writing’s not Doing Stuff, it’s Thinking Stuff – and that’s trickier.

So, many thing’s’ve preoccupied me since I was last here – but the one that keeps coming back is the concept of Boredom. Boredom! It’s an interesting one. Boredom. The more I think about it, the more I wonder. What’s it all about? And where can I find the time for it?

Let me put this in context. I’ve been here – here, out of season, in the resort – for maybe 6 weeks. More people are arriving every day; the place is filling up – the world’s descending; life’s starting. And these new people, they say – incredulously, or just as if they’re stating a fact – ‘you must be bored!’ Or else, ‘call if you’re bored’, ‘pop round when you’re bored’ – things like that. And I ask myself: am I bored? Have I been bored? Should I have been bored?

Well, I’ve been many things since I got here. Frustrated – ooh, many, many times frustrated. No one does bureaucracy like they do it here. My word, at times it’s been frustrating - Catch 22’s a fine novel, but imagine living in it! More on this another time. Scared – well, yes, a few times; you’ve heard about Halloween but there’ve been other times too. And I’ve been pretty solitary – yes, out of season it’s certainly quiet here.

But bored? No. I’ve thought about this a bit, and it seems to me I don’t have the patience for it. But is having the capacity for boredom a good thing or a bad thing? The jury’s out. Define Bored. I’ve not got the internet right now (of course not! It's Sunday!) (This comes under Frustrations and Bureaucracy; see above ...) and no dictionary, so I’ll just have to scratch about inside my head for a definition of my own. Bored: having nothing to do? Nothing to think about? No demands on your time, no worries? Well, it sounds just dandy! What a luxury. How easy is the life of the bored! “Lord, I could be bounded in a nutshell and think myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams” … or something like that.

But, just a minute: back to those dreams. Aren’t they what makes the nutshell interesting? In the nutshell, without the dreams … well, how would I even imagine Infinite Space, let alone rule it? So, without the dreams, yes: I reckon that soon enough, I might get bored. Do the dreams have to be bad? Not sure. But I’ll take bad dreams over no dreams, thank you very much. Inquietude over boredom, yes please.

Is that my conclusion? Well, for now, yes. I’d say it is. Just about bedtime, and I think I’ll stop right there. Don't want to bore you …