I Will Never Be Bored Again

posted at 8:51 pm
on May. 26, 2009

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I will never bored again in my life.

I came to this realization on the seven-hour train ride from Anchorage, Alaska, to Denali National Park.  This was a one-way trip; the return journey would be by bus and it’s not likely I’ll ever make this particular passage again. I had a window seat and as I settled in, I took stock of the entertainment options at my disposal for the ride.

First of all, let’s pretend I didn’t have any Internet access at all.  In fact, I could have used my iPhone on AT&T’s network for most of the trip, which meant I could connect to the Internet at any time.  But let’s pretend that I didn’t have access to the sum total of all knowledge created and digitized by modern society, that that’s somehow cheating, even though I have access to it most of my waking hours and will for the rest of my life with increaing frequency.

Instead, here’s what I had to content myself with: On my computer: hours of video: movies and TV shows and Web documentaries. Entire books, downloaded from Amazon.  Computer games with shifting maps and dozens of levels.  Yes, my battery would run out; there was undoubtedly an outlet on the train for me to recharge.  But I wouldn’t bother Why would I, when I also had….

My iPhone: thousands of photos, hundreds of songs and a few audiobooks. And of course, offline email, SMS and a phone.  Even if you hobble it: no Internet, no phone access, no GPS, there’s still plenty there to amuse and distract and fill your time.

When that battery dies, I’ll turn to the other things in my bag: a book of sudoku, probably 80 hours of diversion.  Aristotle’s “Ethics.”  Jeanette Winterson’s “The Passion”.  Stephen Pinker’s “How the Mind Works” (ok, I’m totally lying, that was in my suitcase).

And my juggling balls.  And my notebook.  And postcards to write.

Failing all that, I could look out the window. We passed a moose, a bear cub, a harlequin duck or a large swan.  The train approaches Mt. McKinley, the highest mountain in North America, with the greatest ascent of any mountain in the world.

We saw decaying DeSotos, river crossings, flood plains of ghosts forests where the ground turned alkaline after liquifying in the 9.2 Alaskan Earthquake, air force bases, private gold mines, summer work camps, and towns ever smaller and more oddly named (Honolulu?).

The conductor, worried about our ability to self-amuse, handed out decks of cards and score pads.  I did wander part of the train, but never got the chance to explore the entire length of it, so I missed the tiki bar and the gift store.

And what did I do with my time on the train?

I slept, and stared out the window, and talked to my family-in-laws.  I took some pictures, and thought about my life in Vancouver, and composed this blog post.

And I realized that, whenever that tipping point was, whatever the day was, in the past, where I was last bored, I had forgotten to note it, and like me on this one-way train ride, I would now never pass its way again.

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The Mono, She Got Me!

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A Musical Metaphor