Let's talk about boredom.

"Open me up and you will see
I'm a gallery of broken hearts
I'm beyond repair, let me be
And give me back my broken parts"
-Ingrid Michaelson, Be Ok

Boredom is a funny thing. When I was younger, I definitely was familiar with the concept and felt bored all the time. I'd come home from school, I'd be out of babysitter's club books, so I'd be bored. I'd be on winter break and my friends would all be out of town, so I'd be bored. I'd be on summer break, the thrill of warm weather and vacationing would be over and I'd even miss school a little, so I'd be bored.

But I quickly found that bored is a self-inflicted thing. You never have to be bored. If you're inventive, or have hobbies, or a little creativity - you can find something to do. The boredom is gone. This is a huge part of the reason I have so many projects in the first place - I turned to the Internet quite frequently when I needed something to quell the boredom. Deviantart. Fanfiction. Skype. YouTube. All direct results of making the proactive choice not to be bored.

But after enough time, the amount of projects multiply and soon there is little time for boredom at all. You become too busy to be bored. There is always a long to-do list of things that went from being boredom-crushers to legitimate obligations, and you miss the time you used to have in which you could just laze around, looking for a new hobby or project to pass the time. Things like reading a new book, or playing a DS game, or catching up on your favorite TV shows. These start to become the things you do when you're procrastinating. The things you do when you SHOULD be doing something else.

But then. Then after the touring, and the albums, the traveling, and the videos - it's winter. And you find yourself with nearly two months to yourself, two months without flying. Without deadlines. Without day after day of obligations, promises you made to people to get things done, errands and projects and early morning alarms set. And you find yourself... kind of bored.

Suddenly it all comes crashing back. All that time you longed for a bit of free time to read, to play video games, to write just for the fun of it -- that stuff isn't fun when you're BORED! Those are the things you want to do when you know you shouldn't, when they're the happy alternative to more grueling work.

So... it's January 4th and I am bored. And I'm trying to figure out if I need to motivate myself to just appreciate it and use the free time to read some of the books on my shelf I haven't read yet, or beat a new DS game that's sat unplayed for months, level up my main character on WoW - or just go online and find new projects. Or stay in bed. I think right now I'll choose stay in bed.


2011 is already out of control with the amount of stuff I am going to be doing, I deserve a little stay-in-bed/video game/reading time. Right?


PS. Thanks for all the suggestions on things to track! I've decided to go with WoW level (since so many people seemed interested, haha) and number of flights I've taken this year. Also, I think I might go back to doing song quotes at the top of entries, things that sort of parallel how I'm feeling or things I just like, because I always thought that was a nice addition to writing a blog post. Don't know why I stopped, honestly.

Level on WoW: 53
Flights taken: 0