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Stud Philos Educ (2011) 30:601613
DOI 10.1007/s11217-011-9256-5
Paul Gibbs
Published online: 26 May 2011 Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2011
Abstract This paper recognizes that we become bored in our post-modern, consumerist Western world and that boredom is related to this existence and hidden within it. Through Heidegger, it seeks to provide a way to structure our understanding of boredom and suggest ways of acknowledging its cause, and then to allow it to liberate our authentic appreciation of the world of our workplace and what can be learnt through it. Using the approach of focusing on being in a societal workplace environment, and the link to Heideggers notion of mood, revealed in Being and Time, boredoms fundamental role is shown as a complex temporal manifold. Our supercial attempts to deal with things in datable time means that we miss the essential importance of the temporal manifold through which our being is revealed and where the Augenblick, (moment of vision) is the authentic present and temporalises itself of the authentic future (Heidegger in Being and time (trans: J. Macquarrie and E. Robinson). Blackwell, Oxford, 1962, p. 338). For Heidegger this is to be understood as ecstasis (ibid, p. 338) when the resolute Dasein is carried away to whatever possibilities and circumstances are encountered (ibid, p. 338). Such resoluteness enables the private capabilities to arise in public practice, not, however, in the conformity of what one does (Das Man) but as an authentically choosing being. The challenge of an ontological pedagogy, regardless of its place of revelation that this prescribes a possibly be edifying mission for Dasein. Instead of chasing away boredom through busyness, a moment of vision could produce creative and authentic ways of being.
Keywords Profound boredom Moment of vision Learning Heidegger
If sleep is the apogee of physical relaxation, boredom is the apogee of mental relaxation. Boredom is the dream bird that hatches the egg of experiences. A rustling in the leaves drives it away (Benjamin, The Story Teller, 2002, p. 149)
P. Gibbs (&)
Institute for Work Based Studies, University of Middlesex, London, UK e-mail: [email protected]
The Concept of Profound Boredom: Learning from Moments of Vision
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Introduction
Boredom, as a concept, has a history beset with negative connotations. The modern...