“We define boredom as the pain a person feels when he's doing nothing or something irrelevant, instead of something he wants to do but won't, can't, or doesn't dare. Boredom is acute when he knows the other thing and inhibits his action, e.g., out of politeness, embarrassment, fear of punishment or shame. Boredom is chronic if he has repressed the thought of it and no longer is aware of it. A large part of stupidity is just the chronic boredom, for a person can't learn, or be intelligent about, what he's not interested in, when his repressed thoughts are elsewhere.” IfsKnowsWantFeelsPersonsActionPainBlessingIntelligentShameDareStupidityPunishmentBoredomElsewhereNot InterestedIrrelevantDoing NothingEmbarrassmentPolitenessRepressed Author:Paul Goodman
“Be patient, do nothing, cease striving. We find this advice disheartening and therefore unfeasible because we forget it is our own inflexible activity that is structuring the reality. We think that if we do not hustle, nothing will happen and we will pine away. But the reality is probably in motion and after a while we might take part in that motion. But one can't know.” IfsThinkingKnowsRealityMightHappensForgetAdviceActivityStrivePatientCeaseFlexibleBe PatientForget ItHustleDisheartening Book:Five years Source: Five years
“The "brightness" of the 15 percent might or might not indicate a profound feeling for the causes of things; it is largely verbal and symbol-manipulating, and is almost certainly partly an obsessional device not to know and touch risky matter, just as Freud long ago pointed out that the nagging questions of small children are a substitute for asking the forbidden questions.” KnowsChildrenLongMatterFeelingsMightCausesPercentAskingProfoundSymbolsDevicesSubstitutesLong AgoForbiddenBrightnessSmall ChildNagging Author:Paul Goodman
“To consider powerful souls as if they were a useful public resource is quite foreign to our customs. In a small sense it is undemocratic, for it assumes that some people really know better in a way that must seem arbitrary to most. In a large sense it is certainly democratic, in that it makes the great man serve as a man.” PeopleIfsKnowsMenWaySoulSeemsPowerfulResourcesAssumingDemocraticGreat MenCustomsArbitrary Author:Paul Goodman
“An awkward consequence of heightening experience when one is inexperienced, of self-transcendence when one has not much world to lose, is that afterward one cannot be sure that one was somewhere or had newly experienced anything. If you aren't much in the world, how do you know you are "out of this world"?” IfsKnowsWorldSelfLosesThis WorldConsequenceDo You KnowAwkwardTranscendence Book:Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society Source: Growing Up Absurd: Problems of Youth in the Organized Society
