I don't mind
I don't mind just wasting time
Wasting time is all there's ever been
I don't care
I don't care if people stare
People stare at all the wrong things
Oh I, I don't mind (I don't mind)
Wasting time is all there's ever been
"Will You Dance?" - The Bird and The Bee
Preface/Context:
One day, when I lived in D.C with some of my close friends for the year between 2014-2015, someone bought a dry erase board and a marker. On our Whiteboard there were doodles and scribblings, but the one thing that was always on there was a simple question "What are you looking forward to?" It was a question that we all agreed we always had to have an answer for.
The answers ranged from the legitimate (Memorial Day long weekend) to the comically morbid ("the sweet abyss of The Void", was a house favorite) but nonetheless it made us think a bit, and in a way it kept us looking forward to and hopeful for the future.
At the end of 2014 we introduced an end of the year recap on our Whiteboard, with just a few categories. Music, movies and Best/Worst Moment. It was a game that we all loved - laughs were had and jokes were made.
While we all went our separate ways at the end of the year, we kept the concept of the End of the Year Whiteboard as a fun way to think about what you did for the past year. We introduced a freely edited Google Document and relived the days of the D.C house.
I decided to facilitate the exercise and, true to form, took it over the top in a typical display of terrible time management and responsibility shirking. I took on the moniker of "Chairman of the Bored" and decided unilaterally that each year required a lengthy and overly serious introductory address. Below is the address from "The Chairman" for the 3rd Annual End of the Year Digital Whiteboard.
The Address
Members,
Welcome to the Digital Whiteboard Yearly Recap, brought to you humbly by The Office of the Chairman of the Bored. This year I have the privilege of asking you a simple question:
“What Did You Do in 2017?”
2017 was a year that saw many unprecedented, novel, and sometimes shocking events. The beginning of the year featured the replacement of America’s first black president by a political newcomer who had never held public office. The strength of the European Union, the foundation of which was forged at the conclusion of the world’s bloodiest and most devastating war, out of solidarity for the fallen and hope for a unified future, was critically tested. The world witnessed the decadent, dizzying heights of the American modern media’s entertainment machine when a martial arts star donned boxing gloves in the biggest mega fight in over 50 years. Western countries - which have otherwise reached stratospheric levels of wealth, prosperity, and general safety - continued to be plagued by disturbingly singular displays of ultraviolence. Chinese political power continues to consolidate abroad, as American influence gives way to isolationist policies and populism. The biggest solar eclipse event in a century was enjoyed on the cosmic stage. A sports prophecy was fulfilled as Houston Astros won the World Series for the first time in franchise history, bringing hope to a city that, like many others this year, had been ravaged by storms increasingly strengthened by climate change.
The Lesser Man looks upon the events of this year with hopeless confusion. The Lesser Man parses through each, looking for patterns. He desperately searches for context. He needs explanations where none can be found. And when The Lesser Man finally admits that there are no answers to be obtained, he throws up his hands in despair and dejection. He is impatient, he is impudent and petulant. He needs to know now, now, now - but as he finds in his fruitless pursuit, there is no answer for Everything. So In his fluster he will grasp at draws; choosing to believe that The Globalist Illuminati are pulling the strings of our existence, or that the whole of life is nothing but a computer simulation gone haywire. But in his heart, he knows these things are not true. In these fantasies there is nothing to be gained. The Lesser Man is flawed in his approach. He does not know what A Member of the Bored knows: That in this life, there is Order and there is Chaos. And 2017, colleagues, was indeed a year of Chaos.
Members of the Bored, in a word, understand. They understand that Chaos need not engender fear. They understand that Chaos need not martial forth anxiety. They understand that Chaos need not breed mistrust and doubt. Times of Chaos are but a positioning of the pendulum of Life; and the pendulum, not unlike time itself, swings ever onward. Just as Good needs Evil, just as Civility needs Savagery, just as Restraint needs Desire, so too does Order need Chaos. They are but two sides of the same coin, inexorably linked. An ancient and necessary dialectic.
Times of Chaos do, however, make unique demands on us all. They require the courage of individuality, the confidence of vision, and most importantly, the Knowledge of One’s Self, as was so aptly written on the temple of the Delphic Oracle in the lore of old.
Members of the Bored know these things. They have a surfeit of these traits - they are but drops in the ocean of the inner self. It is why, despite the external Chaos that 2017 presented, each one of you elected to additionally introduce your own version of uncertainty into your own lives. Each of you gave up the old comforts and the old patterns, in order to travel, to learn, to achieve, to thrive in new and untapped environments. In the face of Chaos, The Lesser Man shrinks away, whereas Members of the Bored push forth so that they may continue to thrive and flourish.
But, with all of this said, the virtues of the Members of the Bored are not borne effortlessly from the aether. “Nothing will come of nothing”, as King Lear famously uttered in the Shakespearean classic. And indeed, discipline, conscientiousness and reflection are the tools with which Members of the Bored forge and refine the raw material of their minds. The Virtual Whiteboard Yearly Recap is a particular exercise in this important art of Reflection.
Instead of regarding the past year as lost to us, and offering nothing in the way of messages and morals, our Members look to it for guidance and knowledge. Because it is indeed true, my esteemed associates, that while we hold the distinction of being Members of this fine institution, we are also people of the Modern Age, and have thereby inherited all of the perils therein.
In this Modern Age, one is not encouraged to contemplate his thoughts at length and without interruption. One is instead pressed ever onward. One is told to cast away the past, considering it a burden, in favor of new pursuits and endeavors and goals. Indeed, there is always another task to be done, another article to read, email to open, message to be sent, is there not?
But what then friends - at each watershed moment, each fork in the road, each sea change, each coup de foudre – are we left with in our minds to guide us forward? Do we have the memories of the past to shape our current thinking or our future decisions? Or are we simply left with our momentum, the constancy of our inertia, unconsidered and wholly unchanged, lurching us forward without the tool of our higher reason to change course?
It is with these reflections, and the lessons gleaned from them, that the Members of the Bored are able to fortify themselves in these times of Chaos. For inevitable though these times may be, certain measures must be taken to withstand against them - to hold the ship in rough waters. Let the Whiteboard be the conduit by which you continue to push ahead.
So then I have the pleasure of asking again, “What Did You Do in 2017?”. What moments made you laugh, what quotes rang true in your heart, what scenes did you love, what thoughts brought clarity, what anxieties kept you up at night? Where did you go that opened your eyes, what did you accomplish that made you proud? What did you read that made you think, what work did you do that moved you forward? What made you angry? What brought you misery? What made you happy?
Attached in this note is the Digital Whiteboard Yearly Recap. On the first page of this document you will find the mission statement, where the goals and purposes of this document are delineated. As The Chairman, I have made my annual review and assessment and have heretofore invited you all to participate in this annual exercise once more. Godspeed to you all.
Sincerely,
The Chair
The Chairman of the Bored