As far as personal epiphanies go, writers like Virginia Woolf and James Joyce can't be beaten. They were masters of the craft of stream-of-consciousness, even if it caused them to have an eccentric writing style. (I believed I counted 21 semicolons on one page in the beginning of Mrs Dalloway.) If only life was as interesting as Joyce and Woolf seem to make it...Terribly ironic of me to say, because Woolf reveled in the mundane, and Joyce in tragedy. But one of the reasons I enjoy both of them so much is that there is always an original thought that leads to another distraction...There are no moments of utter emptiness, where the mind seeks distraction and plummets into a negative mindset. (And if you're Anthony Burguess, negative thoughts lead your characters doing crazy acts of hooliganism. See A Clockwork Orange.)
In truth, the only reason I used the title is because it struck me as a logical parallel to Smashing Pumpkin's Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness. Like many abstract concepts, I have hard time cogniting spacetime. Anything that exists outside of my perception is difficult for me to conceive. However, the ennui part is completely accurate.
Indeed, it is also inconceivable to me how much the human mind requires stimulation. No matter what level of academia you consider yourself, there will always be a moment when your mind feels restless. You require someone to bounce ideas off of, no matter how banal the ideas are. You want a response, which will lead to other thought processes and completely distract you from that certain restlessness.
It is escaping that restlessness that I struggle with. Like most people, teenagers have a tendency to spend all awake time around other people for constant company. The times when we're left alone hit us hard in the mind. I suppose that's why I returned to ProgressiveU, because I'm trying to break out of the mold. (And finding another crutch...?) To spend my time alone and mulling over ideas...but hitting the ennui roadblock is tough. I am positive that writer's block is nine times out of 10 a case of ennui.
Of course, the most effective cure for ennui is (you guessed it) company. Failing that, I've been using literature (forever) and music (within the last six years). Of course, Sylvia Plath was able to eloquently describe the insufferable, long-term boredom in (did you guess?) "Ennui." (http://www.blackbird.vcu.edu/v5n2/poetry/plath_s/ennui.htm) Have a gander and perhaps distract me from ennui with any thoughts.
