I'm Bored

[DMT Elf]

I'm not necessarily looking for any specific piece of advice, I'm mostly just curious to see what people say. So, I got interested in spirituality mostly because I felt uninspired and dispassionate about "regular life". The endless capitalistic rat race of corporate America feels like an endless hamster wheel where you're just expected to run and run and run for nothing but this idea of "progress" and "success" whatever the fuck that is... I keep getting this feeling like life is a death march into hell. Like it's all just a soulless pursuit to nowhere and there's no point. 

So, then you find the internet gurus, and they relate to this struggle. They make you feel like they understand, and then they tell you that it doesn't have to be that way. That you can feel inspired by life. You can live with passion, and love every moment. So I start doing "the work", I meditate, do psychedelics, contemplate etc.. all that stuff. And then that starts to feel like a rat race. I start to ask the question, wait a minute, why am I doing this again?? Ideas like "awakening", "enlightenment", "liberation", start to feel boring and tired, and I get frustrated, and "the path" starts to feel like a joke. 

So.. I'm bored. And a little annoyed. I don't know what to do.

Edited April 26, 2022 by DMT Elf
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[Zeroguy]

@Phil will explain you better how to go up the emotional scale.

My advice find what you like and do that.

[Phil]

First thing that comes to mind is mispath. Never heard that word, just made it up, but it seems accurate. I think what you’ve experienced in large part is mispath. Misguidance & misleadership chalked full of separate self serving disingenuous manipulative misinformation. I digress, but feel it’s worthwhile to mention and to consider, as there might be some suppression of this yet unseen, which might be being projected onto life & the world by and large in the disappointment of disillusionment. Wouldn’t blame you if so, but I also wouldn’t blame anyone for anything for too long because that’d still be the experience of blame, and there are more desirable emotions which actually do result in creating & experiencing what you want to create & experience. Of course I might be entirely wrong too. 

 

Spirituality as meditation, trips and contemplation is missing the key element of inspection & bringing the activity of thought to rest, also referred to as cessation. This is pertinent because what secedes or is seceded from if you will, is suffering. What you are experiencing here is not the result of ample inspection and the naturally occurring cessation of suffering, but, is suffering. The suffering is in the discord of the perspective(s), not the world, or in any ‘way the world’ “actually” is. 

 

Second thing I’d say is I’m not a guru or an internet guru. I do not relate to this particular struggle. I have no desire or intention of making you or anyone feel that I understand. I will not tell you it doesn’t have to be this way. I would tell you that it is not this way already, and these are perspectives about how it is, and this is not, how it is. How it really is, is perfectly ineffable. I also will not tell you that you can feel inspired by life, but that you are what inspiration is, and life is a conceptualization of yourself. Therein, I also won’t tell you that you can live with passion and love every moment, because these would also be conceptualizations of yourself. 

 

 

Inspection of the subtleties is ‘where it’s at’, and yet, this could be disregarded as semantical, and deflected & projected. What would have been ideal, is spirituality as inspection of what is true in the first place, in regards to the very ‘regular life’ & dissatisfaction and discord with it. But I digress, because, here we are. 

 

That (the deflection & projection of what’s being said) in & of itself, there are historical references to. There are countless references actually, but here are two:

 

Judas denied Jesus (denied the truth, the message, what Jesus was saying) three times.

 

As Huey Lewis said about the very ‘News’; 

First time you feel it, it might make you sad.
Next time you feel it, it might make you mad.
But you’ll be glad when you've found -
That's the power makes the world go 'round.

 

 

Maybe you aren’t bored. If you think about it really, that’d be awfully weird. “Hi, I’m Frank.” “Great to meet you Frank, I’m Bored”.

Surely other emotions are experienced too. 

“You’re being semantical, ridiculous”, you might say. 

You’re defining yourself mistakenly & missing the importance of the subtlety here, I would say. 

 

Perhaps in the path sense, you’re experiencing some ‘this is sad really, what’s the point?’… and ‘and I’m kind sorta mad, what’s the point?’… or essentially, ‘I’m woke, and it didn’t work, wasn’t worth it’. 

 

I can’t earnestly claim to share your beliefs and conceptualizations, but I can honestly say they feel the same. The concept ‘regular life’ is uninspiring and not aligned to the tune of passion being created & felt in this experience either. 

 

“Endless capitalistic rat race of corporate America feels like an endless hamster wheel” is also a discordant conceptualization in this experience. Not because it’s true, but one, because it’s a discordant perspective which isn’t true, and second and much more so, because it’s believed to be a feeling, which is associated with a hamster wheel, while the hamster is recognized to be the suffering or discord, of thoughts (and concepts). 

 

“Ideas like "awakening", "enlightenment", "liberation", start to feel boring and tired” is also discordant in this experience. Namely because ideas of awakening which is the same as enlightenment, and liberation, are all ideas. These ideas are fine as ideas, like ‘maybe I’ll eat a banana’ is an ideas. Expecting the experience, the taste of a banana to come from the idea of or thought of a banana, would be discordant. To belief the conceptualization of feeling and or emotion to be ‘boring and tired’, also feels discordant and seems as if presently yet to be inspected. These are also discordant in this experience as these are recognized to be self conceptualizations. 

 

“I get frustrated” is less discordant. “I am experiencing the emotion, frustration” feels pretty aligned. “I get a banana”, no discord. “I get frustrated”, inherently discordant.  

 

"The path" starts to feel like a joke. That’s a good sign imo. But I don’t think you mean feels like a joke in the sense of relief, alignment, communion and the true nature, but more… ‘it doesn’t actually lead to cessation’. 

 

“So I’m bored, and a little annoyed.” These, in this experience, are also seen as self conceptualizations, and it is not hard to see how all of these concepts leave much to be desired in terms of inspection, alignment & communion. 

 

“I don't know what to do.”

Respectfully, not giving advice here. 

 

 

 

[Robed Mystic]

1 hour ago, DMT Elf said:

I'm not necessarily looking for any specific piece of advice, I'm mostly just curious to see what people say. So, I got interested in spirituality mostly because I felt uninspired and dispassionate about "regular life". The endless capitalistic rat race of corporate America feels like an endless hamster wheel where you're just expected to run and run and run for nothing but this idea of "progress" and "success" whatever the fuck that is... I keep getting this feeling like life is a death march into hell. Like it's all just a soulless pursuit to nowhere and there's no point. 

So, then you find the internet gurus, and they relate to this struggle. They make you feel like they understand, and then they tell you that it doesn't have to be that way. That you can feel inspired by life. You can live with passion, and love every moment. So I start doing "the work", I meditate, do psychedelics, contemplate etc.. all that stuff. And then that starts to feel like a rat race. I start to ask the question, wait a minute, why am I doing this again?? Ideas like "awakening", "enlightenment", "liberation", start to feel boring and tired, and I get frustrated, and "the path" starts to feel like a joke. 

So.. I'm bored. And a little annoyed. I don't know what to do.

Just live.  What else is there to do!  Yes - notice how the ego mind has taken enlightenment and made it some type of goal that when reached will be the end of all suffering - will be liberation and that you and reality will be one and thus you will then have passion for life.   But you can love and enjoy life life now - enlightenment, or the "work" isn't required for you to enjoy being.  Just be, to be, and be at peace with that.   Boredom is part of life and its OK.   It shall pass into something that you will do to keep the mind occupied.  But that there must be some goal or some destination is the ego - and the ego always believes the grass is greener somewhere else....  But in reality Truth and Love, and Happiness is its own end.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Robed Mystic

[Joseph Maynor]

When you understand care and the source of care you will enjoy caring for things and people in your life which grounds all your work.  I have to make money because I care.  I have to take care of myself because I care.  The source of adventure has to be care too.  Otherwise, adventure just becomes another optional trip.

Edited April 26, 2022 by Joseph Maynor

[fopylo]

You're either bored or frustrated, one is more dominant in your experience. If you feel bored then you obviously have thoughts arise that indicate that you're uninspired yet not resisting much, that you're quite open and that you recognize options do exists. Really allow this experience to be, and when you do allow yourself to experience it then you give the space for thoughts with similar emotion to rise (slightly better), and you'll naturally feel inclined to focus on them (better feeling not as an idea, but as how you actually feel: in some moment thinking about anime, revenging someone, a certain song, watching crazy prank videos - these might feel more relieving). Naturally you'll feel more connected, inspired and authentic when you really invite your emotion and then relief your way up by allowing yourself to focus on things that feel better.

Probably not exactly the type of answer you were asking for, but I felt that it can be very valuable and not too long. My 2 cents

[Adeptus Psychonautica]

During one of my psychedelic trips I had the realization that humans are creatures of almost infinite potential and creativity, and that if you really think about anything then being bored simply isn't an option.

I think true boredom is a lot more rare than we think, instead its some kind of restriction we put around ourselves that makes us feel bored - I cannot go out, I hate my job, I'm addicted to this video game I no longer enjoy... etc. If you take a moment to look at the reason WHY you are bored then you can usually find a way of removing or circumventing  the restriction fairly easily.

Another thing is to not view life as a set of objectives to be achieved which will dispense happiness/enlightenment/awakenings like a cosmic vending machine. Its just a thing that is happening, so just drop your expectations and let it happen.

[island]

One common theme that keeps coming up during contemplation or tripping is boredom. I notice that I only 'feel bored' doing boring things (meditation, contemplation, staring at a blank wall) when I'm thinking about it. It's the same as 'counting the seconds' on a clock when you're really bored. When I was in school I'd stare at the clock to distract myself from the boredom, or I'd have some kind of internal 'tick, tick, tick' to serve the same purpose. So I realized that I was still doing that habit I picked up early on as a kid in school, but I was doing it in other parts of my life that were boring. But the thing is, when I stop doing that (the clock-watching, or whatever internal equivalent), the boredom goes away. It's the classic flow state, but you can be in it whenever you want, you just have to clear your mind. Be in the flow state and your flow of time is different and you won't feel boredom - that's my assumption. In all my contemplation work, one of my aims is to enter this different flow of time, because for one it's muchhhh more enjoyable and the contemplation tends to be much deeper. And of course no boredom, which was the original cause of discomfort.

[Mandy]

Boredom is a pivot point from old to new, from feeling resistance to flow. There's a lot to appreciate about that. There's nothing happening, but there's an expectation that stuff really should be happening. That expectation is ironically, what's happening. Otherwise there would be nothing...peace. We often blame "the fact" that nothing is happening and miss the belief underneath this that this is bad. 

[Phil]

@DMT Elf

Has it been noticed yet, that you aren’t actually bored as in not doing anything. 

Has it been noticed that you are doing something, and has it been noticed what you are doing?

 

What is this…

doing "the work", I meditate, do psychedelics, contemplate etc.. all that stuff

 

If there has not yet been the recognition of this…

The truth of suffering.