If You're Bored, You're Wrong
8 short examples of how the real world is as exciting as anything that can be found in fiction
This world has more joys, horrors, wonders and mysteries than could be uncovered in 10,000 lifetimes. I can think of no greater tragedy than for a person to spend their single one engrossed in shallow entertainments that don’t matter.
The world is exciting:
“Captain Jonathan R. Davis was an American gold rush prospector. On December 19, 1854, he single-handedly killed eleven armed outlaws at Rocky Canyon near Sacramento, California, using two Colt revolvers and a Bowie knife. This episode became one of the deadliest small arms engagements in American history involving one man against multiple foes.”
Jonathan R. Davis, Wikipedia
The world is terrible:
“One day, Bruce left the kitten sleeping in the wooden box in the corner of the cell as he went to visit the hospital, in which animals were not allowed. When he returned, he found several Thais sitting in his cell, smiling. He looked at the wooden box and saw that the kitten was gone. Then he saw it. The kitten was suspended from a piece of string tied to a bolt in the wall. The string had been pulled so tight around the kitten’s neck that its tongue protruded. Its eyes were squeezed shut, as if in pain. Bruce was so devastated he collapsed on the floor of the cell and sobbed. The Thais then cut the kitten down, skinned it and ate it until all that was left was bone.”
The Damage Done, Warren Fellows
The world is wonderful:
I was caught up to the third heaven fourteen years ago. Whether I was in my body or out of my body, I don’t know—only God knows. Yes, only God knows whether I was in my body or outside my body. But I do know that I was caught up to paradise and heard things so astounding that they cannot be expressed in words, things no human is allowed to tell.
The Bible, The Apostle Paul
The world is fascinating:
“Turritopsis dohrnii, also known as the immortal jellyfish, is a species of small, biologically immortal jellyfish found worldwide in temperate to tropic waters. It is one of the few known cases of animals capable of completely reverting to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary individual… effectively rendering the jellyfish biologically immortal, although in practice individuals can still die.”
Turritopsis dohrnii, Wikipedia
The world is mysterious:
“The text is an inventory of 64 locations; 63 of which are treasures of gold and silver, which have been estimated in the tons. For example, one single location described on the copper scroll describes 900 talents (30 tons) of buried silver. The following English translation of the opening lines of the first column of the Copper Scroll shows the basic structure of each of the entries in the scroll. The structure is 1) general location, 2) specific location, often with distance to dig, and 3) what to find.
1:1 In the ruin that is in the valley of Acor, under
1:2 the steps, with the entrance at the East,
1:3 a distance of forty cubits: a strongbox of silver and its vessels
1:4 with a weight of seventeen talents. KεN”
Copper Scroll, Wikipedia
The world is powerful:
“Many of the known neutron stars spin at phenomenal rates and blast beams of radiation out into space like cosmic lighthouses. These stars are known as pulsars, and they are truly wonders of the universe. Some known pulsars are approaching twice the mass of our sun, measure only 20 kilometers in diameter, and spin more than five hundred times every second. Imagine the violence of the forces on such an object. We have discovered wonders beyond imagination.”
Why Does E=mc²? (And Why Should We Care?), Brian Cox & Jeff Forshaw
The world is beautiful:
“From the reflection of the sun on the spray or mist which arises from these falls there is a beautiful rainbow produced which adds not a little to the beauty of this majestically grand scenery. After writing this imperfect description I again viewed the falls and was so much disgusted with the imperfect idea which it conveyed of the scene that I determined to draw my pen across it and begin again, but then reflected that I could not perhaps succeed better than penning the first impressions of the mind; I wished for the pencil of Salvator Rosa or the pen of Thompson, that I might be enabled to give to the enlightened world some just idea of this truly magnificent and sublimely grand object, which has from the commencement of time been concealed from the view of civilized man; but this was fruitless and vain.”
The Journals of Lewis and Clark, Meriwether Lewis & William Clark
The world is ugly:
“We arrived at the bus stand. This was far and above the saddest and most miserable section of Delhi I’d ever seen. Pure concrete dust and mud as far as the eye could see made up the “sidewalk,” with broken down buildings just behind the sidewalk. At one point I stepped in a pile of black, nameless mud, and then into the toxic concrete dust; this coated nearly half of my shoe in it. Kids and dogs played in the dust and rubble. It was disgusting and heartbreaking.”
Journal Entry: Trial By Fire In India, Robbie Mizzone
"This world has more joys, horrors, wonders and mysteries than could be uncovered in 10,000 lifetimes. I can think of no greater tragedy than for a person to spend their single one engrossed in shallow entertainments that don’t matter." Amen and amen.