As I thought about today’s session, I realized that I was a little bit nervous about being boring. Even though it’s expeditions into boredom, like, well, what if, what if today I’m actually boring?
So setting that aside, I felt like — well, we never step exactly into the same river twice. That part of letting ourselves more fully soak in the monotony, soak in the unconditionedness of these underlying qualities of nature, can be that we actually just repeat as much as possible what we did last time. And just noticing how it feels to have that sense of repetition.
That sameness. Still the same.
Unconditional is kind of a heady word, and in some ways these expeditions into boredom are a way to make it less like a concept — oh, okay, that’s unconditional — and more: what’s the experience of something that is unconditional? Whatever the conditions, it’s the same.
Whatever the conditions, it’s going to be there, be present. And so much of our experience and our habits of life and living, and survival and happiness and meaning — so much of that experience of living is very — well, it comes and goes, what we have, what we lose. What we want, what we lack.
That’s kind of what makes a story, if we even think about a novel or a movie. The story is that there was some condition, and things were a certain way, and then the conditions changed, and then it was a different way. What if we went to a movie, or we picked up a novel, and… it was the Unconditional Movie, it was the Unconditional Novel? Then things would be the way they are at the beginning of the movie, the novel. The unconditional qualities would be how they are in the middle. The unconditional qualities, ways things are, would be the way that they are at the end. I think for many of us that would make for a pretty dull movie. Pretty dull novel. Kind of boring, we might say.
And it’s just also interesting, right, where a lot of times in those plots, what the hero or heroine or protagonist is seeking is connection — rom-com. Or freedom — adventure. Or wholeness — healing, reunion. So these unconditional qualities — they’re not what the protagonists of a movie or a novel are typically seeking. And yet they are, within our own being, within the very nature of our own being. Maybe part of what we are all, in some way, looking for. And so there’s at least the possibility that this very boring novel or movie actually has within it everything — from the beginning, through the middle, at the end — that does make for a whopping great adventure, movie, living.
Expeditions into Boredom Series
Let’s explore our personal frontiers of un-drama in the monotony of nature’s flow. Over the course of an hour, how might I attain a depth of boredom that’s a new personal record? What if we got really curious about what’s ongoing, ever-present, and seemingly… boring?
Monotonous can feel boring. If I’m curious about boredom, can I actually be bored?
Let’s see!
[Recorded live in 2025 — one that I return to in my own practice]
Thank you for Being with Being.
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