Boredom and the quest for immortality
Day 2 of our crossing to Wick, Northern Scotland. I am on deck, looking forward for my watch to end and go to bed.
Capsula is perfectly set, no sails to trim or course to adjust. No internet either, so forget about scrolling. Reading bears the risk of triggering seasickness. My best friends are podcast and audiobooks but after 2 days at sea, their interest decreases.
Time passes slowly. Did I already check the clock only 5 minutes ago?
I never thought much about time before moving on a boat, but for the fact that I never had enough of it. One of my objectives with this liveaboard project was to experience boredom, which I hoped would force me to think about topics I too easily brushed aside under the “I don’t have time for this” carpet.
It worked, bored I am. And it makes me realize how contradictory is our relationship to time. We (I) complain about never having enough time but as soon as an empty moment arises, we try to fill it up with activities. We dream of living longer, set up billion-dollar companies to solve death. But in the meantime, we do everything we can to pass time, we even attempt to kill it.
These empty hours ahead of me make me wonder what I would do if I was to live 200 years. Would I embrace the time passing relatively more slowly? Or would I fill it up with even more activities? If the latter, will it really feel like 200 years? Or would I manage to shrink time again?
I would probably try to experience all the beautiful things our planet has to offer. If I was to live 200 years, imagine how many countries I could visit, people I could get to know, books I could read and languages I could learn. Unless, by the time I reach 100 years, I realise that all this doesn’t matter, really.
We already have the key to immortality: stay in the present moment. We’re just unwilling or unable to use it.
At least I am. Otherwise, what a better place to try it than a boat in the middle of the ocean? Miles of sea around, nothing to rush to. Sometimes, I have a glimpse of how peaceful it can be, to just be there. But a second later, like today, I wish it was already my time to go to bed.