Boredom

"So many people tell me that they smoke dope because they are bored. It was perhaps inevitably a Swedish professor who classified four types of boredom.

1. Boredom of situation like being trapped on a train without a book.
2. Creative boredom when we are forced to come up with new things creatively – which can result in writers block for example.
3. Boredom of saiety, when we can have too much of  a good thing.
4. Existential boredom, when we have simply become bored of life itself.

Boredom is often considered part of the human condition, perhaps a by-product of living in a modern society: a rather sad reflection of our values; if we are uncomfortable with boredom we either have to change ourselves or change our situation or of course, we could just go ahead and get stoned or drunk.

One of the things that used to fascinate me about being stoned was how it would allow me to find beauty in extreme ugliness. Ugly buildings, ugly city, a grey day. But now, as someone who hasn’t smoked a joint for, at the time of writing, nearly six years, I can report that I haven’t lost this perspective. I learnt the lesson that dope taught me – somehow everything in life is alive and has its own vibratory energy. It’s like having learnt to ride a bicycle; it can never be unlearnt, it’s always with you. I still observe and absorb my external reality in the same way I did when I used to smoke. It’s just part of who I am. But now I don’t have those feelings of extreme isolation that used to go with it."