Not to bore you, but have you thought about the meaning of life?

 

The year 2024 is ending soon. Just as we’ve been getting comfortable with it, it’s gone, and we’ll have to start getting used to 2025. This seems like an annual affair. Do we have to do this forever?

No. One day our number will come up, and our diaries and calendars will be wiped clean. Depending on one’s beliefs, for some it is the end of everything, while for others it’s the beginning of something that’ll last forever, which everybody agrees is a very long time indeed.

For most of us, life is never boring. Financial, health and other matters keep us in a permanent state of terrified excitement. But at least it’s not the kind of terror of wondering whether a bomb or a bullet or starvation or disease will end it all for us tomorrow.

Thank heavens for that. Some, however, suffer from what’s been called existential boredom, a timely phrase to replace that lovely old word ennui. Surprisingly this mostly afflicts those who, to the world, appear to have made it.

These people struggle to figure out how to fill their days, even if they have plenty of resources to do it — to travel or start a hobby or join social outings or whatever. It’s a deep, deep boredom that they can feel but can’t shake off.

Existential boredom

A friend has an uncle who’s done well in career and wealth, but finds his life deeply boring and meaningless. The travels, the new places and experiences, even with his own family, leave him unmoved and unfulfilled.

Most of us don’t have this existential boredom problem. Trying to keep our head above water seems to be a good antidote for boredom. Who’d have thought that counting your money and checking on your wealth could be so mundane that waking up in the morning can be such an unwelcome event?

It’s one of life’s many surprises that people whom conventional wisdom says should be enjoying the bountiful harvest of their life’s toil also seem to be some of the most bored and unhappy people.

Me, I’m not bored at all. My life is full of stuff, big and small, interspersed with the occasional pain and joy. I meet people and make new friends, and occasionally cull some old friends as I’m too old to deal with drama queens and kings.

Creaking old bones

It’s not a life of unadulterated happiness. Visits to the doctor are becoming more frequent. Senses, organs and muscles that worked well or at least did so unnoticed now cry out for care and attention. My bank account seems to be seeing one-way traffic — outbound. Many people have forgotten about me, and I seem to be one of those people myself.

I didn’t grow up having specific goals for my life. I just hoped for a salaried job as I knew too well it isn’t much fun to live the life of the proverbial chicken that “scratches around in the morning, eats in the morning; scratches around in the afternoon, eats in the afternoon”.

Many things didn’t quite work out, apart from the “makan gaji” (a salaried job) part. But I did okay as things went, all the time wondering why they were actually paying me for doing what to me didn’t feel like a real job, such as one that involves growing food or teaching or healing people.

That phase lasted over four decades, and has passed. My kids are all grown up and the nest is empty, but my world isn’t. I still do a lot of what I enjoy — tinkering around in the workshop and on the farm, and meeting new people just for the sheer pleasure of it.

Chasing the dream

Those who experience existential boredom have spent their early lives chasing after some worldly goals and seemed to have achieved them. But as the saying goes, be careful what you wish for, as some now discover that those things aren’t very fulfilling after all.

Many haven’t invested or sacrificed in creating meaning in their life, which often means doing things that positively impact others as well as themselves. If they’d sacrificed anything at all — perhaps themselves or their family — it’s been in pursuit of ephemeral goals such as money and position and the adulation of others.

Even before social media, many blinded themselves from realising that what’s really important isn’t what you have, but who you become. Wealth, power, position suddenly become meaningless, leaving you naked to the harsh gaze of an unkind world.

This is especially bad for some who’ve retired. A lot of life’s meaning that came with their position or wealth has dried up. Their financial income may continue, but what a friend once called the psychic income — the non-monetary stuff — seems to have dried up and can no longer sustain them.

Counting the days

Then there’s also the shadow of our own mortality that looms larger by the day. When the mind is bored and empty of anything exciting or fulfilling, then it just magnifies these thoughts about mortality and other doubts and misgivings.

That’s a very slippery slope. I hesitate to use my own experiences, but I remember my late parents seeing out their last days with peace and equanimity for having lived a meaningful life. Admittedly their life’s meaning was quite simple, centred on their children, their faith and the wisdom to know when to say enough, but it meant something to them.

If you are one of those suffering from existential boredom, the cure is perhaps to think about how you want to spend your years in ways that benefit others rather than yourself. It’s time to “give back” so to speak, because as St Francis of Assisi said, it is in giving that you receive.

For the rest of us, it’s a matter of keeping our noses to the grindstone, hopefully in pursuit of something meaningful that won’t bore us and leave us empty later in life. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.