On Boredom
I only have to close my eyes to see it, even after almost four decades. A huge expanse of yellow-beige, marked here and there with little flurries of a pattern comprising diamonds which contain more shades of beige, and are separated by overlapping dark brown and black lines. It looks like the curtains you’ll see in photos taken in the 1970s, and given that in places the surface looks pretty worn, that’s probably when it was placed here.
This is the carpet in the Truro branch of Marks & Spencer and I am roughly 6 or 7 years old. We are standing in the middle of the clothing racks with my dad waiting silently while my mum has disappeared to have a look around, something that happens 2 or 3 times a year. She was probably only gone for 15 or 20 minutes, but in my mind I might as well be waiting for Godot, if I knew who that was. To me in this moment, I am stood in the single most tedious place on the surface of the earth, with absolutely nothing of interest at hand to pass the time which appears to have slowed to a fraction of its normal pace, so I stare at the floor and mentally parse the pattern.
When we finally leave the store I’m quietly resentful at the time that’s been wasted. Trips to Truro are mostly exciting affairs, a rare chance to look around all the additional shops that are available in the ‘big city’ (these things are relative when you grow up in remote West Cornwall). But always in the middle of these adventures there’s the inescapable ordeal of the M&S visit — possibly I’ll get bought a sensible jumper that I’ll grow into or some scratchy grey trousers for school — and it colours the rest of the journey. A silly little reminiscence from my childhood.
Maybe. I’m in my mid-40s now, with a sensible job, a semi-detached suburban house, and a receding hairline. I’m hardly the most unconventional individual you’ll ever meet. If you were to draw a criteria diagram for a Marks and Spencer shopper, that would be me right in the middle waving out at you. And yet… today if I find myself in a town or city looking for clothing, there’s one shop I’m guaranteed not to be spending my time or money in, and it’s the one that still has its carrier bags in that trademark shade of green. I know it’s not the 1980s anymore, that the stores are brighter and airier, that they’ve gone through any number of relaunches to adapt to the challenge of new rivals, but some things run deep. When they bored me so ruthlessly all those years ago, they lost a lifetime of potential future custom.
The above could easily read as petty to many, and perhaps it is. I’m lucky, I had a relaxed childhood with no traumas to report, there’s no material for me to write one of those misery memoirs that now have their own section in book shops. School was also straightforward, it came easily to me and we had good, welcoming ones in my village. The worst thing that would have happened would have been the death of an aged relative or a family pet, but these are hardly unusual events for a child. Many adults can talk at length about something dramatic that happened to them and how that formed the person they’ve become, but that doesn’t apply to me.
When I look at things that happened to my younger self, and where I think a direct line can be drawn between how I am today with those events, a quality that often binds them together is boredom. There’s an irony here in that being bored isn’t something I often had to grapple with; at various ages I only needed some toy cars, a book, or a football and I could always entertain myself easily until the next mealtime. Even today I’m quite at home with my own company, the pleasure of a long walk or cycle ride is as much in the solitude as it is the exercise. But there were occasions when I’d find myself in an imposed situation which bored me deeply, and maybe when the years that shape you are lacking in serious upheaval, then the annoyance you felt takes the place of more serious incidents as a significant driver of your adult self, a reminder of how not to do things now you’re in control of your own time.
Where I buy my clothes is a trivial detail though, there’s plenty of other choices available. The same applies to other foibles I internalised and which stay with me — an intense dislike of garden centres (boring), anything relating to the industrial revolution (boring), pretty much any pre-20th Century literature (boring, with a handful of exceptions). In isolation each of these is shared with many individuals, then as you start to add more and more you build up more of a personal picture, even if ultimately they don’t really matter. But other sources of intense boredom impacted on things that some people would consider very important.
Growing up, Saturdays were of course the best day of the week. A day without school, when I was very young it meant a walk to see my grandparents, card games with my gran while the TV showed darts and snooker on Grandstand, or wrestling on ITV. Later a batch of home-made cooking would appear in time to watch cartoons and the vidi printer spitting out the day’s football scores — I still get a warm feeling watching the classified results check today, even though it’s been butchered by Premier League scheduling. Then when I got a little older, Saturday meant a lie-in, followed by a kickabout or a wander into the village or local town to spend a little pocket money on whatever my latest obsession was.
Sundays were different though, from the moment you woke up. You could feel it physically in your stomach while you ate your breakfast and got dressed, a soporific deadening feeling hanging in the air. There might be time for a few minutes play, but nothing that would get you too messy before you left the house to trudge the half a mile or so down the road to the local church.
We weren’t going to attend the service — most of it anyway — but were headed to the Sunday School in the adjoining church hall. It was an unremarkable building, if you’ve ever been inside a church hall you can probably picture it; high windows with tall red curtains along the sides, a dusty wooden floor marked with the lines of a badminton court, and a stage at one end for occasional amateur productions. Sometimes the lessons took place here, or they might happen in the basement you could reach by a narrow flight of stairs at the back of the raised area.
I’m pretty sure there was some sort of picture on the wall of the basement, but I’ve erased any memory of what it was. What I do recall clearly once again was the floor of this space — no carpet this time, just cold, dull tiles arranged in an orange and white chequered pattern. I’m sure I remember them so clearly because I spent so much time staring at them, wishing I was anywhere but this place at this time. To be clear, no-one did anything bad to me in this place, this isn’t a story of physical punishment and the leaders were amiable enough, but whenever I hear the word ‘dreary’ this is the spot my mind pictures.
What was the content of these Sunday School lessons that induced such monotony? This is the part I find hardest to explain, because the honest truth is that I struggle to remember a single one with any clarity. People who know me well can testify that I have an ability to recall various events and dates from my childhood with precision. I remember friends’ addresses, my first primary school assembly, what position I finished in at sports day, pictures that I drew which hung on my classroom wall, even the times written on invites to birthday parties. Memories of what we were supposed to be learning on Sundays though are much more abstract and harder to access.
I do remember that worksheets seemed to be used a lot, of the kind that a supply teacher might bring into school to occupy a class for a morning until normal service resumed. I have a memory that one of them was purple and related to Daniel in the Lion’s Den. There was another session where I diligently filled in a questionnaire that asked ‘what would you do?’ in various situations, only to find when I checked the answers that because I’d ticked all the ‘right’ ones I must have somehow cheated. There was a lot of talk about places like Israel and Galilee which might as well have been in another universe for all the relevance they had to my life. And that really is about as much as I seem to have internalised, which doesn’t feel like much of a return for several years’ attendance.
When it was over we’d walk over to the church to join the congregation for a few minutes, but this new development wasn’t likely to lighten my mood. Once I’d mentally added up the hymn numbers on the board behind the pulpit, there wasn’t much to distract me while the service went on, though the mournful singing of the songs I didn’t know and had little desire to learn was probably a good representation of my feelings. Would a positive, joyful atmosphere have intrigued me more? Perhaps. There’s a beautifully accurate Bill Withers anecdote in which he contrasts churches like mine with the enthusiastic gospel services where his grandma would worship, and if I had to choose one to attend it wouldn’t be a hard decision.
Once it was over everyone would gather in the church hall. This was an improvement because I wasn’t being taught anything now and was relatively free, though running around was discouraged because the space was rather crowded and the adults were holding hot drinks. One of the details I didn’t realise had stayed with me was the strong aroma from the coffee pot that hung in the air; a few years ago I wandered into a craft fair which was taking place in a church hall next to a market I was visiting, and as soon as I entered that exact same smell hit me and I almost froze in surprise. I know these people.
What else do I remember about Sundays? I recall on a few occasions hearing laughter coming from the gardens of neighbouring children as we walked home, and feeling jealousy because that’s what I should have been doing with my day instead of wasting it in the big building down the road. I remember that nothing was ever open in the afternoons when we were free, so the opportunities for damage limitation were limited. Even the early evening TV seemed designed to mock a young audience, with nothing to excite anyone of our age — Points of View, The Antiques Roadshow, Songs of Praise, Highway. It was like the broadcasters had decided to deliver all of their obligatory public service programmes in a single portion.
As soon as I was old enough to make a choice about attending I stopped going. Sunday mornings became football time; it was true that the team I played for was pretty awful and double figure beatings were fairly common, but I enjoyed the matches anyway. By my early teens churchgoing had dwindled to an annual appearance at Midnight Mass, which with its late hour, candlelight and cheerier music admittedly held a little more appeal, but given the opportunity I’d still rather not have gone. It wasn’t a place I ever felt I really belonged.
Now I’m an adult and other than the obligatory weddings, funerals, and a handful of trips to see a particularly impressive cathedral, I haven’t set foot in a place of worship in over half a lifetime and don’t see any reason why that shouldn’t be extended for some time yet. There’s no fear of what such a visit would entail, I’ve just got no motivation to do so because there’s absolutely no appeal. This isn’t a jibe at those who choose to spend their Sundays in this way, I don’t regard churchgoers as being a distrustful group, they’re just not people with whom I share a crucial piece of their worldview. My own thoughts about theology would be an essay in their own right, and it’s not one I’m inclined to write anyway.
And yet… something happened recently that may have subconsciously been the trigger to writing this piece. We’ve been selecting a first school for our son, which means finding out about the local ones and picking the one we think will best meet his needs. There were several we shortlisted, and one of them is a church school. We’ve spoken to the friendly headmaster, they’re keen in their literature to represent themselves as a school for the whole community, and I don’t doubt that they’re sincere in that; I’m pragmatic enough to accept that if this school is the best option then we should choose it for my son’s sake. But enrolling here also means mandatory attendance at a few church services each year, and so in my head they’re starting from a point slightly behind the other schools. Because I’d been so intensely bored all those years ago and have no wish to pass that on, they’ll have to work a tiny bit harder to win my trust.
What bores me today? It’s a state I rarely find myself in, my work is interesting to me and there’s any number of modern distractions to fill the quiet moments. Almost every adult now carries a device that allows you to watch videos or read articles about any subject you can imagine at a time of your choosing. When you’re older there’s less between time to fill anyway because there are more responsibilities that need resolving, so if boredom went some way to shaping me, perhaps I’m no longer developing as quickly as an individual. As a way of helping to construct someone’s character, it’s relatively benign compared to some of the alternatives, but I still wouldn’t recommend that it be actively pursued. It’s far more rewarding to find something that inspires you and which you can stand for than something you define yourself against.