In Defense of Boredom
Boredom is often seen as a curse, but for me, it was the gateway to freedom and discovery.
I grew up on the edge of a lake, 10 miles from the nearest town, on a two lane paved road that might see a half dozen cars pass throughout the day, but then again, the world’s population was half what it is now — there were simply far less people around . . . 4 billion less people, that’s not a small number, so when I say a quiet two lane road, unless you come from the deep backcountry in Montana, you probably don’t really know what I’m talking about.
In the summer months, when school was out, my parents and my sister left in the morning before 8 AM, my parents to work, together in a small real estate office, my dad the broker and my mom the secretary, and they dropped my sister off at my grandparent’s farm, where her horse was housed, and she spent summer days there.
I spent summer days at home, alone, in a trailer house next to Boulder Lake in northern Minnesota.
There were houses and cabins around our house, but these were mostly empty except for one or two weeks out of the summer, when the city dweller/owners would visit for their summer respite from the big city heat. Right next to our house, the Steadman’s lived, an old retired couple that I never, ever saw outside of their house, or even noticed any presence of them at all.
