I told my son I was bored and he asked me why. That got me thinking about the answer. Bored was not the right response. No, it was a different feeling. I would start playing a video game and not want to make the effort to continue. I would wander off mentally while doing simple tasks. I lack the desire to do any tasks. Depression? Nope, not that either. While depression has been a constant shadow over the last few months (you cannot recognize that you consider end of life nearly weekly and not admit to some level of being depression adjacent), this is not that. I think it has to do with passion.
I’m lacking passion in a lot of what I do.
I know passion when I see it. I recognize that feeling that swells inside of me when I am really about something. I recognize the focus and dedication that comes with wanting to succeed, do well, or relish in the moment of an action. I also recognize when it is not there, though less so. It goes back to the gaming–where I start to play and then immediately asking myself if I even care to continue. Usually the answer is no and it is habit that makes me finish or some misguided concern for loss of position in a game where as I may want to come back to it later in life and not be in a bad spot. Honestly, it feels like burnout, this lack of passion. Perhaps I am burned out on the daily life and I am looking for a way to reset, rest, and reignite. Yet I am not really allowing myself to do so in any measurable way.
(Dis)passion and boredom can be easily misconstrued in my mind, but it also may be true that they possess the same DNA. I wonder about the roots of such things and how I came to be in a state where I am dispassionate about every facet of my life save one, obvious, exception.
It isn’t Covid-19 that is making me this way. The roots of the feeling run deeper and older than that.