Boredom

The world is designed for love, yet this is precisely what it lacks—claims the fallen man. And from this arises boredom. Imagined goodness, with its monotony, propels us toward actual evil and complete human failure, just as imagined mercy lures us toward sin. This is why average novels and films are immoral; they can only depict this dynamic. Truly great novels and films, however, allow us to glimpse hellish depths filled with nothing but boredom, disgust, and desolation—because that is what we are like. At the same time, they also reveal, with sharp clarity, the unmistakable sanctity that exists.

Boredom arises from not knowing or believing that we have been loved from eternity and will be loved forever—or from forgetting that God is our Father. This boredom has a history in Europe. During the Renaissance, Europe began to forget that God loves. The so-called Enlightenment was the second step, as it started denying divine revelation. The Romantics depicted this loss of footing. They began to suggest to us the root of sin: boredom. For instance, Pushkin's Eugene Onegin shoots his best friend, Lensky, purely out of boredom. The prodigal son also indulges in debauchery out of boredom. Even the older brother is bored, which is why he wants to "celebrate." This solution is absolutely moral—it perhaps means he organizes beautiful activities for himself. He has money, so he travels, goes to the theater, opera, and concerts. He leads a life filled with constant social engagements, hustle, and bustle. But when he finds himself alone and looks in the mirror, he sees his reflection, and from deep within him, bitter boredom wells up. Yet he suppresses it heroically, pulls himself together, puts on a forced smile, and returns to the surface of life, where everything continues as before. This, again, is an imagined life—false reality.

True joy, real celebration, is found in the depths and is connected to the one banquet that the Father prepares for the Son in the Holy Spirit. Humanity—and through it, the entire universe—has been invited to this banquet from eternity. Without this connection, all these beautiful programs, in which there is nothing inherently wrong or sinful, become meaningless and sinful because they obscure the essence. Those who reject the known God, Christ, and replace Him with fate prepare in their souls a profound boredom.

The European man has been doing precisely this for centuries. He has renounced the Father because he suffered under paternalism. Yet now he does not realize that the source of all his troubles is the absence of a loving Father.

Barsi Balázs "Az irgalmas Atya", Sümeg, 2001