East and West in uneasyness and stillness
I tried to ease my dullness in a way that really felt unique to me, yet it never actually vanished. With time, a pinhole developed in my boredom– one that spilled into various other monotonies. That tiny opening widened into a hollow area and at some point turned into a huge pit. Once again, I found myself peering right into both native and foreign monotony. It struck me that boredom, as well, has its geography: Eastern monotony, Western monotony.
In exploring the curiosities of Western monotony, I recognized that Alberto Moravia was best: the driving force of background is neither progression, neither evolution, neither economics– it has constantly been monotony. And Schopenhauer, who when informed me that amongst all feasible worlds ours is the worst, echoes this extreme sight: boredom, he claims, is really a good thing, for it is the origin and structure of our social life. Every single time fulfillment is obtained, each time a requirement is met, the clock of monotony starts to strike.
Marguerite Duras once claimed that nothing can absolutely shock an individual other than boredom, for within every act of monotony bubbles the source of one more. Paul Valéry, increasing on her thought, made use of the expression the dullness of living In this light, I recognized that both my monotony and my attempts to withstand it stand at a clear angle to those of the West; they do not fairly …