Dare To Be Dull

“Dare to Be Dull” by Joseph L. Troise is the satirical book from the 80s that advanced the notion of dullness as an aspirational lifestyle choice in response to the excesses of modern life. The deliberate embrace of simplicity, ordinariness, and lack of trendiness, you see, liberates individuals from societal pressures to be exciting or fashionable, a way to enjoy mundane pleasures and live authentically. Om. . . it is sitting after a club lunch in the garden.

Boredom, in contrast, is characterized by restlessness, dissatisfaction, and a lack of interest in one’s current activities or surroundings. It is involuntary and often unpleasant, arising from a sense of confinement or lack of purpose.

Three aspects of boredom – it is bad, experienced individually and distributed equally – have helped corporations “weaponize” it for profit (click: Who's Boring Now? The Corporate Capture of our Fight Against Boredom). These are the mechanisms that keep us scrolling, watching, shopping. But what if the people took boredom back? “Boredom can signal that what we are doing at the moment is not meaningful . . it doesn’t have to be an opiate. It can be a smelling salt.”

The article cites the analysis of Heidegger (among other philosophers) to deepen our understanding of how existential emptiness manifests in ordinary situations. He identifies three forms of boredom in The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics: Superficial Boredom (a specific object or situation leaving us unfulfilled); Situational Boredom (passively surrendering to an event out of habit rather than interest); and Profound Boredom (nothing matters).

Perhaps share examples? A common one, of course, is the perpetuating superficial boredom of the distraction loops of app scrolling or binge-watching. Then there is the profound boredom depicted in the article’s cover picture of a man’s vacant stare at the yogurt display in a supermarket that perfectly replicates the most poignant scene in The Hurt Locker of the soldier just on leave from his treacherous bomb disabling assignment with that same vacant stare i.e. what really matters anymore? It’s T.S. Eliot’s disillusionment in The Waste Land.

But the most cynical application of boredom must be in its manipulation of the consumer as it is powered by the need to be doing something, anything. This is the marketing power of boredom – the selling of “agency” (the need to fulfill some inchoate desire arising from the emptiness of unsatisfactory alternatives), the contrast between expectations and results. Bored? Simply engage more, produce more, buy more. You are the product.

Boredom does not just maintain the status quo. It is the status quo. But seen from a different perspective, perhaps boredom can be a signal that what we are doing at the moment is not meaningful, motivating us to engage in meaning creation itself.

Dare to be dull.

Please note the following RSVP Policy for Member Monday: RSVP sign-up opens up at 11:00am on Fridays via the City Club weekly Newsletter. Seats are first-come, first-served: the first 14 secure a spot at the table, the last 3 on the couch. Cancellations must be made 24 hours in advance or the standard Social Lunch rate applies.