Since I missed the first Keith O. show tonight due to a class, I've set the tv channel on MSNBC for the rerun, and in the interim, MSNBC had a show about young, homeless, heroin users in Portland and Seattle.
And there were various young people talking about "nothing to do". There was a continuing account of a young woman runaway from Missouri, now pregnant, who, in one segment complained about spending a "boring" day, but also expressed hopes of goals like having a garden to eat from, having a cow and chickens.
My problem is the disconnect between their professed "boredom" and their "dreams".
I'll admit to being the unhappiest of adolescents, and it continued on to young adulthood, but, inexplicably (?), I never remember boredom, I never felt there was nothing to do; even being nearly destitute at 19, I knew the public library was free and spent a month reading about 45 books and listening to a bunch of records I could get at the library, while I waited for someone to call back on any menial job app I had in the works. (I did, literally, jump up and down when I got called for a part-time job in a dietary department for a hospital)
I am really curious about "boredom" and "nothing to do".
Am I generationally different (I'm almost 52) in that the broad swath of my generation lucked out with boomer advantages in that we at least got a decent primary school education where we valued learning as a survival strategy, or is there a tendency in subsequent generations to feel that a tray of interesting things ought to be served up to them to engage their participation?
At my age, I do start to worry that there isn't enough time to do all the things I want to do, and I am an extremeley average person in many ways.