Notice the reach. The queue moves slowly and the hand goes to the pocket. The programme ends and another begins before the credits. The conversation pauses and someone fills it.
Each individual instance is trivial. Together they constitute a policy: no unfilled moment shall be permitted.
What is being avoided
Not boredom, which is only the name given to the first thirty seconds. Underneath is something else — the material that surfaces when nothing else is competing for the channel. Unfinished grief. A decision being deferred. A quiet dissatisfaction with a life that is, on paper, going well.
The filling is not idle. It is work, performed continuously, at real cost.
Solitude is not loneliness
Loneliness is the absence of others experienced as a lack. Solitude is the presence of oneself experienced as sufficient. They feel similar for about the first quarter of an hour, which is why so few people find out that they are opposites.
A mind that can be alone is not one that has escaped others. It is one that no longer requires them to be quiet.
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