[-empyre-] Welcome to May: Boredom: Labor, Use and Time

[Lyn Goeringer]

"What do others' think about the relation between fantasy, meditation and
mind wandering?"

This is a really interesting question, especially when countered with Ben's
question about anticipation.  I do think that the question of anticipation
is antithetical to boredom, because in anticipation, it requires a moment
where expectation of an event is delayed beyond our expectations. In
waiting, we encounter the other components here: fantasy, possibly
meditation (especially on a habitual replaying of the fantasy itself) and
mind wandering (when the expectation of an event is delayed and we are
forced to cope with the lack that is present there. In this instance, I am
considering Lacan's approach to Limit-experience, a moment when it is in
anticipation of something else that we find boredom, linked inherently to
desire itself.

As a mechanism in the production of boredom, I think lack does nicely as a
term, as it encompasses much of the problems and questions: we crave that
which we cannot have, cannot ever obtain, and feel an absence for this
thing which creates longing. In our inability to obtain this, we find
ourselves bored with what we have, bored with who we are, and bored within
a whole context of being that limits our experience within the bounds we
are placing it in.

Looking towards links between this lack and meditation: meditation
sometimes is applied to overcome need, to overcome lack, to overcome
desire. (In buddhism, desire is linked to the root of all suffering). If we
were to apply meditative practices as an antidote to boredom, we find a
different problem, particularly as boredom is a primary obstacle in
overcoming itself. I think if this very abstractly as a lack cycle.

-lg
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