Maria Ramos Chertok

Writer, Workshop Leader & Coach

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Boredom: Musings (Part III)

At the end of my 2nd Blog Post on Boredom, I shared that today’s post would be a conversation with Dr. Cio Hernandez about the statement, “Only dumb people get bored.”  Our conversation began when I asked several friends and colleagues to share their throughs on boredom and Dr. Hernandez responded with the aforementioned quote.  When I saw it, I realized I had avoided mentioning that viewpoint in previous posts so as to avoid having to consider how it related to me.  I wrote some reactions to Cio about it we’ve decided to take our conversation public.

Maria Ramos-Chertok: Tell me how you think about boredom?

Dr. Cio Hernandez: 100% of my opinion on boredom comes from my dad who would say only dumb people get bored, which of course I never wanted to be, so I was never bored.  My sisters and I always made up things to do or would be fascinated by the art in the clouds that would pass by in the middle of nowhere Texas.   For me, boredom is the inability to see beyond what seems real in stillness in 120-degree heat with onion, broccoli, and cotton fields around me, which is where we were stationed (Raymondville, Texas) when my father was in the public health service.  

Isn’t it wonderful to have so many definitions?  

However someone perceives boredom though, it’s important to hold it as one’s own rather than an imposition of someone else’s definition.  

Even now in my few minutes of rest between jumping back into work, I hear some distant neighbors howling gritos to mariachi music of some kid and I wonder what happiness they may be enjoying right now, grateful for the distant joy it brings me.

Maria Ramos-Chertok:  It triggers me to think about being labeled dumb and propels me into wondering if it’s a truism.  Since I don’t think I’m dumb, I have to wonder where that leaves me.  I often hear adults saying this very common refrain to children. My sense is that saying, “I’m bored” is another way of saying, “I can’t think of what to do with myself right now and my mind isn’t generating ideas that engage me.  Help!”  I don’t think it’s wrong to reveal what it feels like to be at a loss for what to do.  Shaming someone into action doesn’t feel good.  As a child, hearing that statement would simply make me want to go underground with my truth.

Dr. Cio Hernandez:  I have never taken that statement to be that I was shamed, although I can understand how and why someone in different surroundings might.   

I saw it as an opportunity to be present and look deeply.  It was actually encouraging mindfulness rather than fear of being alone.  That was a gift from an introvert (my father) to an extreme extrovert (me).  I never saw it as him wanting us to keep busy either.  It was intended as the exact opposite actually.   I saw it as an opportunity to assess things from different angles, to ask questions, be curious, and accept wonder as a gift to be pondered and twirled…the foundations of a scientist being taught, something I really cherish.  

Now, it’s actually the way I know that I am no longer dissociating or in trauma brain because I can see shapes in the weird strands of hair that end up on my shower wall, that somehow smile at me or help me know that my right brain is online with creativity.  

Maria Ramos-Chertok:  I would have never thought about boredom as you’re describing it here and I’m so glad you’ve been willing to help me understand your perspective.  It gets me thinking about how easy it is for us to stay in a comfort zone with our own thoughts being the correct (and therefore the only) way to understand something.  You’ve helped shift my perspective and understanding.  Thank you.  

***

As I look back on the past three blog posts something new is emerging for me.  In the first blog, I quoted Robert M. Pirsig saying, “Boredom always precedes a period of great creativity.”  In response, I wrote that that was, “wishful thinking.”  In retrospect, I can see how my interest in boredom has spurred a period of engaged thinking, learning, and, yes, even creativity.  Based on that, I’m more hopeful about boredom.  It’s really not as boring as I’d imagined after all.

Photo by Maxine Rose www.unsplash.com

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Boredom: Musings (Part II)

As a follow up to my July 1st post, I’ve done more thinking and some interviewing of women of color about boredom (as promised). My first observation is that I don’t get bored contemplating the topic. That curious insight is the fodder keeping this blog post topic alive.

“Boredom means we can sit with a person we seek to know better, ourselves.” 

This quote was offered by my friend Deborah, an educator and certified life coach. It got me wondering how I feel about getting to know myself better. I realized that I don’t like myself when I’m bored, so I try to distance myself from me. Now I’m wondering if that’s why I find it so troublesome.  

Deborah’s quote reminded me of a something Janis Cooke-Newman, the founder of Lit Camp, referenced in a recent writing and meditation workshop she offered.  In the virtual session, she shared a teaching she heard related to people saying they find it difficult to meditate.  In response, her teacher said, “[m]editating is spending time with yourself.  What is it that you don’t like about spending time with yourself?”

Boredom is a lack of gratitude; Boredom is feeling powerless; Boredom is avoiding feeling uncomfortable feelings.

Author, Speaker, and Success Coach Dr. Sweta Chawla wrote this to me:

“Wow, a word that comes up so much while raising an 8-year-old boy, especially a single child extrovert. 

I remember someone once saying to me that boredom is lack of gratitude. It rubbed me the wrong way and I don’t know if it’s because I felt truth in her words or because it didn’t resonate.

I can tell you as a person that is hyper-vigilant, of course being a woman and a POC as well as other childhood experiences…like being bullied for being different, has contributed to perhaps misreading boredom. In situations where I have no control or am not stimulated…I feel anxious/bored. But really, I think it’s that I am feeling powerless.           

For me, boredom has also been about numbing and avoid feeling other uncomfortable feelings. I’ve seen this with my son too. When he struggles with homework or doing something that is hard for him, he says “it’s so boring.”  I think if we are brave enough to be with boredom some real truths become available about our own fears, inadequacies, etc. 

Sometimes even peace can make me feel bored. But I also know that it’s not healthy to be “on” all the time. Being bored in some ways feels like a luxury that many of us, especially in the American productivity hamster wheel could benefit from embracing more. I’ve found that with myself, and even my son, embracing boredom has created   space and inspiration and creativity that would never have room to emerge without boredom.”

Boredom as the bane of the Protestant work ethic and capitalism

A thought came to me related to the influence of the Protestant work ethic on the American psyche’s experience of boredom (and on my own psyche).  

I remember a friend of a friend giving me a button that read, “The harder you work the luckier you get,” (a quote attributed to professional golfer Gary Player and to author Brian Tracy).  Years later, my mother sent me an 8 ½ x 11 poster with the words, “I will do the most productive thing possible at every moment.” I had it taped to the refrigerator in my studio apartment until a friend of mine suggested it was an abomination to have that reminder nagging at me throughout the day and night.  

Given that our capitalist society puts value on an individual based on their income earning ability, when I’m bored, I have lost my enthusiasm for productivity, therefore, my “value.”  Being unproductive, when viewed with a lens of internalized oppression, means lazy, a term that has been used pejoratively against people of color for centuries, often to justify verbal abuse, corporal punishment, and other forms of violence. 

Maybe my boredom is simply a desire to be without doing, which I can’t allow because I’ve internalized that my being only has value if it’s doing.  My DNA knows it’s not safe to be bored.

No time for boredom

Finally, two other women responded to my inquiry saying, “Boredom? Not much time for that!”  One from the East Coast is the mother of a 5-year old and the other from the West Coast is about to bring a newborn into her life.  For them, boredom is a distant luxury.

I’m so grateful for these responses from my community of friends and am left with much to think about.  

My next Blog Post on July 22, 2020, will be a conversation with Dr. Cio Hernandez about the quote,“Only dumb people get bored.”

If you have insights or experience with boredom, please feel free to add your thoughts in the comments.

Photo by Mark Basarab on www.unsplash.com

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Interview with Deborah Santana

This is my third Gemstones piece, a blog post featuring people who lead with an open heart and work to uplift others. I’m honored to have the chance to introduce you to the work of Deborah Santana

Tell me about what you’ve been up to since we last saw one another?

I’ve been through some huge changes.  In June 2018 I rented an apartment in Los Angeles to be closer to my newborn grandson and, after being there on my own for two and a half months, I awakened to the realization I was happy on my own. I ended my marriage and began exploring Los Angeles more than I had in the past. I spent time looking at neighborhoods close to my son and his family and eventually bought a home.

The sale of my house in Marin closed the same day as the LA house, which happened to be my father’s birthday.  It was divine order.  My life embraced a new path and it felt that I was being carried along without having to expend effort. I moved into my LA house last June (2019) and continued my philanthropic work and began a new venture, Temple Tree Sanctuary.

Temple Tree.  Tell me about that.

Last New Year’s, I went to Maui and stayed at a retreat center with no TV.  I walked a gorgeous, outdoor labyrinth, following a stone path to the center.  In the warm breeze, I sought guidance for my future.  I was filled with a calming energy and envisioned being in that kind of healing environment to continue my life work. 

Since 1998, I have provided funds for women, children, and girls in the areas of education programs, domestic violence prevention groups, art services, my beloved Daraja Academy in Kenya, and more through my Do A Little Foundation, and before that, Milagro. On my labyrinth walk,  I felt that G-D and Spirit were telling me I could create something new — a place where people can come and have a healing experience.  I began a journey to create Temple Tree Sanctuary.  I have been invigorated by the prospect of housing a center with healing practitioners who share their gifts. 

Temple Tree Sanctuary will to provide wellness experiences in a peaceful, uplifting environment. Our core beliefs are that humans can commit to work for the highest welfare of all beings. We can promote the unity and similarities in us all through the practice of compassion and love with a genuine sense of sisterhood and brotherhood.

The Sanctuary will offer reiki, meditation, stretching, fitness training, NLP, sound baths, cooking classes, chanting, writing workshops, and teachings in indigenous wisdom. It is a place for seekers to gather to heal our world through individual and group practice.

My main focus right now is building my Wellness/Healing Center Temple Tree Sanctuary, a nonresidential healing center.

Tell me about your experience of living in Marin versus Los Angeles.

The first thing that happened when I was in Los Angeles for the first two months was feeling the impact of the traffic and pollution.  In Marin I lived in an idyllic house where deer and racoons were my neighbors, and I lived a rather monastic life, let’s say.  When I moved to Los Angeles, I moved to Studio City.  It was so much more crowded, and it took time for me to adjust.

What I love about being here is there is so much diversity and there are so many museums and the landscape is larger.  I’m thriving here:  the organic food, the restaurants, the little villages of people.  I love not crossing bridges anymore.  If we are lucky and have the privilege to follow our heart, we find the right place for the moment.  I miss my friends from Northern California and I miss the events we had for All the Women in My Family Sing,  but I know quite a few people in LA and have sweet connections here.  

In a virtual event I listened to earlier in the week you said, “…[t]hinking things I won’t let myself think.”  Can you say more about what that means?

In this time of the pandemic of racism where we are all having to live with the reality of what people of color have had to deal with for 400 years, my wounds from racism have been opened. Growing up with a white mother and black father I knew I could be assaulted physically or verbally for how I looked.  San Francisco was relatively liberal, but knowing that people were looking at me because of my skin color and hearing my parents’ stories:  my mother being spit on when she was with my father; my father being shot at in the stomach by his landlord because he had a white woman in his apartment —  that history lives inside me. I’ve worked through various healing modalities to get those horrible wounds out of myself (e.g., neurolinguistic programming/NLP, therapy, Reiki, Ho’oponopono, etc.).  

I want to love everyone.  I don’t want to look at a white man who looks at me harshly and think he’s going to go home and get a gun and shoot me.  I want to get those thoughts out of me.  I don’t want to make any assumptions about a person’s character before I know them, as Don Miguel Luis writes in his book, The Four Agreements.  But when I see the faces of the four men who murdered George Floyd and I see men on the streets who look like them, I think they are going to kill me.  

I was listening to an interview today on KPFA from June Jordan where she’s talking about Dr. King, the riots in Chicago, how Black people were being murdered and assaulted by police — the same things we are talking about today and the millieu in which I grew up.  Those memories live inside in black people’s bodies.  I don’t want my mind to dwell in that place because my spiritual purpose is to live in the present. When I saw non-black allies go out into the streets getting rubber bullets shot at them, surviving tear gas, I was so grateful.  There can be no progress without the participation of every person who can empathize and foment change.

There is a wonderful book, Stand Your Ground:  Black Bodies and the Justice of God written by Kelly Douglas Brown, a black woman.  She writes about how white supremacy has been perpetrated and how the Stand Your Ground defense was used when Trayvon Martin was killed.  White people have been taught these negative myths about people of color.  They were taught that stealing land from indigenous people and owning black people is acceptable.  There has been no reckoning here like there has been in Germany about the Holocaust.  In Germany everyone has to study what Hitler did.  If not, people continue to learn the lies.

There are so many important things being done by people of color and our book All the Women in My Family Sing was influential because so many people have never read narratives written by people of color.

During the virtual event, I also learned that you are a Reiki practitioner.  Tell me about how Reiki impacts your life?

I’ve had Reike done on me for thirteen years.  It is a healing energetic treatment that originated in Japan.  It is made up of two words:  God’s wisdom and chi – the life force energy.  Practitioners become receptors of spiritually guided life force energy.  I started doing research to find out what the practice was about because it left my body feeling transformed.  I studied level one.  It’s very simple to learn.  Reiki acts in harmony with others.  Reiki practitioners want to be pure vessels for what Reiki wants to give to others.  

Dr. Mikao Usui is believed to have started Reiki.  But there were four other styles of Reiki healing practiced in Japan before him. The secret is inviting happiness and healing into your body and leaving anger and worry outside.  You practice on yourself for the first thirty days and then you learn the symbols. I have also completed the level two course.  

When you practice, your hands get really hot because of the energy flowing through you.  I love when my hands become hot and tingly.  It’s such a funny thing.  Sometimes practitioners receive images or messages when they put their hands on your body.  But you also have your own experiences.  I’m connected to healing energy – I can just feel warmth or light and that gives me clarity.  The more we use the skills, the more in tune we become.

You asked me if I’ve ever heard of Peace Pilgrim.  No, I haven’t.  Please tell me about it.

I started reading Peace Pilgrim when my children were little.  She was a daring lady who had lived a normal life until, in 1953, she felt she was called to begin a pilgrimage for peace in the world.  She made a shirt that said Peace Pilgrim and she walked 25,000 miles for peace – a penniless pilgrim.  Her principles are:

“This is the way of peace:  Overcome evil with good, falsehood with truth, hatred with love.”

I’ve attended many churches, have had a guru, and always sought spiritual communities where I could thrive, yet I always come back to her.  She walked out of her life. I don’t think I could do that, but I want to live by her principles in every way I can.

As I was thinking about our interview, the notion of beauty kept coming to me.  Tell me about the role that beauty has played in your life?

It is an interesting question, now that I’m older.  Our family was beautiful.  My dad was stunningly handsome.  My mom was movie-star beautiful.  My sister and I drew attention because of our looks.  It’s such a false way to live in the world.  The more people judge you outwardly in a good way, the more you judge yourself.  I’ve met many women who are free because they are not measuring up to someone else’s expectations. What people are attracted to is glamour.  Glamour is temporal and fleeting and human-made.  It has a very low energetic vibration.  Beauty comes from the inside.

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Boredom: Musings (Part I)

I started facilitating an online group of thirteen and fourteen teenage girls in my Butterfly Series in mid-June.  In our first session during the check in, everyone said how “bored” they were sheltering in place and not being able to be out in the world, especially during this time of social movements taking to the streets with Black Lives Matter at the forefront of America’s consciousness.

When I heard them talk about being bored, I understood.  I too have felt bored, not just with the vast limitations placed on my movement and social interactions, but at other times in my pre-COVID life.  And because of that, I’ve been pondering boredom. 

My quest began with seeking a definition:  Boredom (noun) – the state of feeling bored.  That didn’t help much.  So, I continued. Bored (adjective) – feeling weary because one is unoccupied or lacks interest in one’s current activity.  Okay, more to the point.  Then I came across the word ennui defined as a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from lack of occupation or excitement.  I like this word better because it identifies external factors as responsible, unlike boredom which insinuates something is wrong with the bored individual.  Ennui has a mystery to it, a suggestion of something sultry, almost enticing.  I’m already feeling better.

Then I start researching quotes about boredom to see what those deemed thoughtful by the mainstream (aka notable white men) have concluded.  I don’t typically go to mainstream sources for insight, but I did find this inquiry interesting (a real testament to my boredom).   Turns out there are a few clusters that the quotes tend to fall in.

Cluster #1: Wishful thinking

“Boredom always precedes a period of great creativity.”  Robert M. Pirsig

I’m not sure this is true, although I’d like to think it is.  It does make sense that boredom would inspire new ideas.  When I asked my fifteen-year-old son about the upside to boredom he immediately said, “it makes you think about new things.”  When I’m bored, I don’t usually feel so hopeful, but I do have to admit that I have begun doing new things to shake off the boredom of my daily routine like driving out to the beach early in the morning to walk, buying vegan chocolate cookies from the farmer’s market for breakfast www.bossbikkie.com  and decorating my office with white lights.  Highly Creative?  Not sure.  Enjoyable? Yes.

Cluster #2:  The philosophical roots of boredom

“Boredom:  The desire for desires.”  Leo Tolstoy

I like the sound of this, but it sounds like Leo is describing depression more than boredom.  I think the “desire for desires” is wanting something to ignite your passion and while I’d love that too, my threshold for not being bored seems a great deal lower.  I wonder if something got lost in the translation, given Russian was his first language.  I’m thinking “something to grab my interest and hold it with a tight grip for more than three minutes” would be how I’d lower the standard Leo’s set.

Cluster #3:  Social Media and boredom

I log off because I’m bored.  I log back on in five minutes because I’m bored. Post from jokeallucan.blogspot.com

I do appreciate this comment, but it addresses behaviors more than the raw feeling itself.  Using social media to escape boredom doesn’t always work but it does give you something to do, which is often more socially acceptable than staring into space.  Looking busy has a high premium in our productivity-oriented culture.  If you’re staring off into space, you might get a full ten seconds of disengagement time before someone waves their flat palm vertically in front of your eyes to snap you out of the moment and lure you back to their lackluster reality.  Given that social media use is a relatively new activity and boredom has been around since time immemorial, I feel like it doesn’t engage the issue of boredom at the cellular level.  I’m going to keep looking. 

Cluster #4:  Those who are bored wreak havoc

He had been bored, that’s all, bored like most people. Hence, he had made himself out of whole cloth a life full of complications and drama. – Albert Camus, The Fall

This quote sums up what I’ve been guilty of, especially as a younger person, and now what I try not to do.  It also brings to mind the question of alcohol use.  I talk to my two teenage sons about this a lot.  Why do people drink and get drunk?  Often because alcohol makes everything less boring – at least for a small while.  Inhibitions lower, feelings come pouring out, drama increases, problems ensue.  What better way to stay entertained and distracted from the otherwise boring life you’re leading?  I challenge them to enjoy life without alcohol and drugs.  I know, I know.  Boring, right?  

It seems I’ve only scratched the surface here in examining boredom. Given we’ve only heard from white men in this post, I’m committing to interviewing at least four women of color about their musings on boredom and reporting back to you in my July 15th Blog Post. 

Until then, get lost in thought.

Photo by Catherine Heath www.unsplash.com

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Change Happens

When I was fourteen, my mother came out as a lesbian.  It was 1976 and way before the days of books like Heather Has Two Mommies (1989), one of the first LGBTQ children’s books to gain broad attention.   During my elementary school years, no one talked about anything LGBTQ other than guys (mostly) using a slew of pejorative terms to harass any male who did not live up to their invisible testosterone litmus test.  One of those boys lived on my block and, not surprisingly, he often found refuge at our home.

Fast forward forty years. In November 2016, a few days before the forty-fifth president of the United States is elected, my almost fourteen-year-old son comes out as gay.  I am so happy for him and, as it turns out, so are his classmates and teachers.  I am astonished about how nonchalant people are and how vast the spectrum of both sexual orientation and gender identity is for the young people of his generation. 

On June 16, 2020 the United States Supreme Court held that both sexual orientation and gender identity are protected classes under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, a piece of federal legislation outlining who can bring civil lawsuits based on discrimination.  I immediately receive a text from a close friend, also a boomer: “tears and more tears…I had to hide for forty-four years!”  This is from someone who’s been “out” for most of his adult life, but nonetheless has had to hide his life from the world around him including most members of his very Catholic family, co-workers, and others he has no reason to trust.

I grabbed onto the good news of the SCOTUS decision like a life preserver.  This unexpected and long-awaited news fills me with joy.   I think about how it will change the nature of my sexual harassment prevention trainings where I’d been showing a color-coded map of the United States to give participants a visual image of which states have laws that include sexual orientation and gender identity as protected classes, and which don’t.  There are always some folks in my mostly Bay Area/California trainings who are floored to learn that (prior to the June 2020 decision), it was perfectly legal for employers in some states to discriminate against someone on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.

So, where does that leave us?  The law has changed, but as we see with discrimination of any kind, including anti-black racism, behaviors and hearts and minds have to change as well.  One way that happens is through bystander intervention:  simply put, see something, say something.  While the words may seem simplistic, interrupting an “ism” takes focus, clarity, and the willingness to move into an unknown sphere:  

What will the response be? 

What if there’s anger? 

What if I lose a friend? 

What if family member won’t talk to me anymore? 

What if I lose my job? 

What if I get arrested?

What if I lose my life? 

Valid.  

And the only way to find out is to take some action:  Say something whether it be through protests in the streets, writing, community art, letters, policy and advocacy campaigns, courageous conversations, Op-eds, or speeches.

You’ve seen the protest signs, “silence is complicity.”  Say something so that my son can hear your voice, my mother can feel your support, and my dear friend knows he doesn’t have to hide in your presence.

Photo by Jiroe www.unsplash.com

About Maria

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A graduate of UC Berkeley and the University of Pennsylvania School of Law, Maria was a fellow with the National Hispana Leadership Institute, where she attended the Center for Creative Leadership and Harvard School of Public Policy. She received her mediation training from the Center for … Read more...

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