Time to imagine is a part of being human.
-- Ben Elton

Ben Elton was on TV last week talking about the importance of having time. Time to imagine, time to reflect -- time to be bored.

He said kids these days, they don't get that time anymore. You can't develop your reflective skills if you spend all your spare time watching re-runs of American Idol.

It was an interesting take. I grew up bored, was bored at school, had several jobs in which I was bored. I used to bemoan various of my day jobs to friends. 'Oh, if you didn't have a job,' I was frequently told, 'you'd be bored!'

'Dude,' I'd invariably reply, 'I'm bored now! It's the JOB that's BORING me!'

I've always resented parts of that life, & kicked myself for not being better equipped to do something active with my time. I could've learned French, for example (actually, in one job I actually did). I could've done some fiction writing at my desk (another tick, I confess). I could've snuck in philosophical tomes to read, artfully disguising them under 'internal memo' envelopes. ... That's a good idea, actually.

But I've always had a superstitious dread, too, that if I DID throw in the towel on the entire idea of a day-job, I wouldn't know what to do with myself. It's the very structure of the day job -- of getting up early, of having those stolen hours to make up for at night, of having that very job to fight & rail against -- that's resulted in the delicious thrill I get when I have time now.

Writing, obviously, is one thing I can do with my time, but writing only partly feeds the soul, I confess. Or maybe not the soul, but something else. The brain, maybe? I had a couple of discussions over the weekend with different writerly types in BrisVegas on the values of a day job -- even just part of a day job. Having that engagement, that process, that challenge, to liberate the flagging parts of the brain.

When I worked as a multimedia programmer, for example, I got to use the logic side of my brain & the pattern recognition. When I work as a project manager, I get to use strategy and solution-provision. These end up feeding back into writing, but they also stretch parts of my brain that writing isn't necessarily utilising to the fullest. Plus a day job can really push you beyond your comfort zone, to find new methods of dealing.

Day jobs do, however, tend to use up far too much of the day.

And anyhow, is writing simply a way of *avoiding* boredom? Is writing as respectful a past-time as reflecting? Is writing even MORE respectful? Or is 'time to reflect' yet another demand on our schedules, on top of writing?

I guess I'm wondering, too, whether you can watch American Idol AND be bored at the same time. It seems likely to me! And I've carried on entire day jobs effectively while being bored. Isn't the new generation adept at multi-tasking & attention-splitting? Are they also, perhaps, kinesthetic, allowing the movement of visual images across their retinas to soothe them into reflective ennui -- the same way us pre-TV kids would watch grass in the wind, or dogs scratching, or neighbours bickering?

Have we really lost our ability to reflect, or has its means -- like every damn thing from generation to generation -- merely changed shape?