In defense of boredom and intentional failure

I used to take the Shooter Eldest to fifteen to twenty baseball games a year, when she was aged 2 to 4. People always used to congratulate me on how lucky it was that my kid was a baseball fan, or ask how I managed to cultivate a taste for such a slow game in a little girl... and then I'd have to tell them that, no, it wasn't luck or cultivation, because the Shooter Eldest isn't really that much of a fan. She just likes to go places with me.

"But how do you keep her from being bored?"

Well, we'd go to the children's play area, bring coloring books, buy junk food... hey, um, actually? Sometimes, she gets bored. Life is like that. It's not even child abuse.

The other night, I was keeping a spare eye on the Tigers-Indians game while dealing with laundry, where Cleveland jumped all over the minor-league board Dontrelle Willis (he's Barry Zito without, um, control or stuff). With the score 8-0 in the third and the mother of all rain storms bearing down on Motown, Indians' pitcher Cliff Lee just started throwing belt-high strikes to try to get the game to official status quickly. He gave up a couple of runs, but moved the game along fast.

The Tribe hitters then came up, and while they were also hurrying things along, they were still swinging the bat to hit the ball, and when reaching base, not getting picked off first intentionally. From outside the game, it seemed like the wrong play, but from the point of view of a player whose outs could be used against you in a court of arbitration? Maybe not. (Footnote: the game was stopped in the fifth, but eventually resumed, with a Tribe win.)

Having the ability to be OK with an unpleasant situation (say, heat, boredom, rain, or making outs intentionally), or more importantly, the ability to see beyond your immediate physical or emotional needs is, I think, damned useful. It allows you to develop the concentration to complete a goal. I was bored plenty when I was a kid; it allowed me to develop, moment by agonizing moment, the tiny amount of patience that I have today. More importantly, it let me develop an imagination and intellectual curiosity to see connections where others don't, to find things to think about when there is nothing else to do, and to blog every day and ride trains for 17 hours a week without going into a killing spree. (So far. I'm not making any promises for if and when train delays start pushing this to 20 hours a week and beyond. New Jersey Transit and PATH, you are officially On Notice.)

Entertainment, especially when it's passive and suits you, is brain candy; fun, a rush, easy to sell and, at the end of the day, essentially composed of air and nothingness, with no lasting import or impact. (You can toss in, of course, the video clips you find here, or even this little piece of timewaste if it's not sparking any thoughts on your part.) But you shouldn't just live on candy, just as you should be able to watch something that takes some time without being overwhelmed by feelings of boredom.

Because, well, the people in my life who feel compelled to tell me how bored they are? They are, by and large, extraordinarily boring people. It takes two.