Summer boredom

Sunday afternoon, as I returned to Edgefield from Greenwood and a quarterly meeting of the Gravatt Convocation (a subdivision of the diocese), I attempted to enjoy listening to NPR. But, the circular coverage eminating from Greenville, Columbia and Aiken in SC and Augusta in GA does not overlap reliably along US25, my Sunday afternoon route. In fact, just outside Greenwood I could tune in only one station on the entire dial and that ended up being the audio from a network television station. And, of course, I "arrived" during a commercial!

It seized my attention, that commercial. It was loud, first of all. Second, the insistent big pitch was this: relieve your summer boredom. The solution? Six Flags. The announcer promised pure entertainment, unforgettable thrills.

YOU ARE BORED.
YOU NEED SOMETHING TO DO.
THIS IS IT.

I DON'T THINK SO.
For the rest of the 45-minute trip, I drove in comfortable silence leafing through my memory for something I'd read during our time at Kanuga the first week of July. It was in Elizabeth Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love: One Woman's Search for Everything across Italy, India and Indonesia. It's been a couple of busy days, but I've located the quote.

Generally speaking ... Americans have an inability to relax into sheer pleasure. Ours is an entertainment-seeking nation, but not necessarily a pleasure-seeking one. Americans spend billions to keep themselves amused with everything from porn to theme parks to wars, but that's not exactly the same thing as quiet enjoyment. ... Americans don't really know how to do nothing. This is the cause of that great sad American stereotype -- the overstressed executive who goes on vacation, but who cannot relax.

Entertainment verses pleasure. Six Flags versus hummingbirds. Six Flags versus early moring fishing or early morning photograhy. Actually, let's make that one a both/and. Six Flags versus concocting a shrimp salad for supper with, let's say, peach cobbler for dessert. Entertainment verses pleasure. There is a difference.

I'm one of those Americans about whom Gilbert is writing, no doubt about that. But, not every time all the time any more. I think I could be in recovery.

And, happily, I'm not bored. Ever. That blows the Six Flags solution. Sorry.