
Books and the 'Boredom Boom' - lermontov
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/10/books/boredom-books.html
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bonniemuffin
"Only boring people get bored." -my dad, every time I whined about being bored
as a kid.

~~~
yakult
Generalized version:

"Only <low status> people get <common condition that I do not have, or would
like to signal I do not have>".

Once you see the pattern you'll see it everywhere.

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bonniemuffin
Nah, I'm pretty sure he just wanted to encourage me to come up with ways to
entertain myself. Thus, my childhood hobbies included building a city out of
empty kleenex boxes for a family of little pieces of wool to live in;
recording songs off the radio onto cassette tapes and coming up with indexing
strategies to keep track of them in notebooks; and soaking every plant I could
find in rubbing alcohol to find out which ones made dye I could paint with.
Weird kid, what can I say.

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loeber
Sounds like you spent your time exploring creative pursuits. That's
worthwhile. Seems like a fun childhood. I believe that it is important to
stave off boredom with creative, rather than consumptive activities.

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WalterBright
> Most door-close buttons in elevators and request-to-walk buttons at
> crosswalks serve no purpose other than to give us something to fidget with.

Ha, I was right! Wretched things.

~~~
jhbadger
About the crosswalk thing, I'm pretty sure that's a myth. At least everywhere
I've lived if you don't press the button, you don't get a walk sign. There are
intersections that have walk signs automatically, but they don't have buttons.

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seszett
It's the same for door-close buttons in the handful of elevators I use
regularly. The doors do close just when you push it, whereas you have to wait
several seconds if you don't.

~~~
yoz-y
Depends, in my apartment the door close button is actually counter productive
as you have to push it all the way until the door closes. As people tend to
only push it quickly, it actually opens the door which was already closing.

Pretty annoying.

