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A JUSTIFICATION OF BOREDOM: If man is protected against his thoughts by generally finding it difficult to think (by which I mean to think objectively, constructively, and continuously - in other words, above the usual plane of subjective considerations, incidental fragments, brief recollections, disconnected words, casual street-sign readings, intuitive insights, etc., and beyond the moods or situations when thinking of one kind or another comes most naturally to him), then one might justifiably contend that he is protected against too much mental and physical inertia by the intermittent prevalence of boredom, that scourge of the idle.

To most people, particularly the more intelligent ones, boredom is a distinctly disagreeable condition, an emptiness usually leading to self-contempt, which suffices to goad them into doing something absorbing, into losing and rediscovering themselves in some preoccupation, some form of activity or stimulant. Now if boredom had absolutely no place in their lives, if mere existence sufficed to content them (as appears to be the case with a majority of animals), what do you suppose would happen? Do you suppose, for instance, that they would really do anything, would, in fact, be capable of living at all? The prevalence of hunger, thirst, lust, changes in the weather, etc., would doubtless oblige them to satisfy their respective physical needs as quickly and efficiently as possible. But, having done so, what would they then have to live for afterwards?

Without boredom there would have been no civilization - no art, science, religion, politics, philosophy, music, sport, travel, evolution. In fact, without boredom there would probably have been nothing of any consequence whatsoever. For boredom is akin to an eternal whip!