{"id":43709,"date":"2012-01-30T02:22:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-30T02:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/many-cultures-still-dont-have-word-for-boredom\/"},"modified":"2012-01-30T02:22:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-30T02:22:00","slug":"many-cultures-still-dont-have-word-for-boredom","status":"publish","type":"sermon-illustrations","link":"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/many-cultures-still-dont-have-word-for-boredom\/","title":{"rendered":"Many Cultures Still Don&#8217;t Have a Word for Boredom"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Science writer Winifred Gallagher argues that what we call boredom (which she defines as &quot;the unpleasant sense that there is nothing that interests you&quot;), is largely a recent problem that still doesn&#39;t exist in many places around the globe. She writes:<\/p>\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>Situations that would strike us as unbearably dull, say, waiting for hours or even days for a bus, are considered just the way life is in many developing countries. Anthropologist Henry Harpending has done extensive fieldwork in the back country of [Africa], where in most ways, he says, &quot;folks are just like you and me. But one thing that the Westerners that go there just can&#39;t understand and are open-mouthed about is the people&#39;s tolerance for tedium. They can just sit all day under the trees &hellip;.&quot; [Harpending] is fluent in Bushman and he has tried for twenty years to elicit a word for boredom, but the closest he has gotten is the unsatisfactory [word for] <em>tired<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Gallagher also adds, &quot;[In the English language] <em>boredom<\/em> has no derivation: That is, it doesn&#39;t come from any other word but was specially created. Moreover, the word didn&#39;t appear in English until the later eighteenth century.&quot;<\/p>","protected":false},"author":30,"featured_media":0,"template":"","tax_ctp_audience":[],"tax_ctp_authors":[],"tax_ctp_categories":[165],"tax_ctp_format":[171],"tax_ctp_illustration_types":[411],"tax_ctp_multimedia":[],"tax_ctp_point_editor":[],"tax_publications":[140],"tax_ctp_tags":[3423,3465,3516,3651,3683,3726,3776,3869,3910,4061,4064,4236,4544,5290,5293,5305,5316],"tax_ctp_topics":[388],"class_list":["post-43709","sermon-illustrations","type-sermon-illustrations","status-publish","hentry","tax_publications-ct-pastors","tax_ctp_tags-apathy","tax_ctp_tags-awe","tax_ctp_tags-boredom","tax_ctp_tags-complacency","tax_ctp_tags-contentment","tax_ctp_tags-culture","tax_ctp_tags-devotion","tax_ctp_tags-entertainment","tax_ctp_tags-excellencies-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-glorifying-god","tax_ctp_tags-glory-of-god","tax_ctp_tags-indifference","tax_ctp_tags-new-things","tax_ctp_tags-wonder","tax_ctp_tags-work","tax_ctp_tags-worship","tax_ctp_tags-zeal"],"acf":{"scripture_references":[{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null},{"first_verse":null,"add_second_verse":false,"second_verse":null}]},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Many Cultures Still Don&#039;t Have a Word for Boredom - CT Pastors<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/pastors\/preaching\/sermon-illustrations\/many-cultures-still-dont-have-word-for-boredom\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Many Cultures Still Don&#039;t Have a Word for Boredom - CT Pastors\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Science writer Winifred Gallagher argues that what we call boredom (which she defines as &quot;the unpleasant sense that there is nothing that interests you&quot;), is largely a recent problem that still doesn&#039;t exist in many places around the globe. 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