Author: Lars Svendsen
Translated by: Abdullah Ismail
The reason that prompted me to write this book was the extreme boredom that had plagued me for quite some time. However, what alerted me to the importance of this subject was the death of a dear friend of mine due to a bout of boredom that had afflicted him. I had come so far as to agree with Arthur Rimbaud when he said, “Boredom is no longer my love.” Where boredom is no longer just an innocent condition or an insignificant obstacle. Suddenly, Rambo’s complaint of “mortal boredom” became serious, and the expression later became popular in pop and rock songs such as J.K.’s “Bored to Death”. g. Allen, and Depeche Mode’s “Something to Do,” which had the distinction of representing our entire lives. I then realized that this experience was not limited to just my close group of friends, but rather indicated a serious problem with the concept of “meaning” in our contemporary culture as a whole. Researching the problem of boredom is an attempt by us to understand our human nature and how we interact with the world around us in our time. And the more I think about this issue, the more it seems to me that boredom is a fundamental and influential factor in understanding our contemporary culture. We live in a culture of boredom, and the book “The Philosophy of Boredom” is a modest attempt on my part to understand this culture and reconcile with it.
