We often say to our grandchild that he needs to switch his shoes because he has them on the wrong feet. Each time we do, I am tempted to make a crack about they couldn't be the wrong feet since they are the only feet he has.
That idea lead me to the interesting subject of what I accept as boring or repetitive and what I don't. "Mindreal" by the scientist Robert Ornstein goes along with various ancient philosophical themes that stress that our senses and our minds do not present us with a picture of reality. As the same scientist makes clear elsewhere, our minds are more or less wired to notice the recent, the novel, the outstanding. Once I let myself decide that there is nothing new in the scene out my window, that scene is boring.
Yet, because I don't think about it, I don't complain that these eyes, these ears, these hands are the same old ones I used all day yesterday, even though they really are.. Ideas such as these lead me to recall the poem called The Pessimist by Benjamin F. King:
Nothing to do but work,
Nothing to eat but food,
Nothing to wear but clothes
To keep one from going nude.
Nothing to breathe but air
Quick as a flash 't is gone;
Nowhere to fall but off,
Nowhere to stand but on.
Nothing to comb but hair,
Nowhere to sleep but in bed,
Nothing to weep but tears,
Nothing to bury but dead.
Nothing to sing but songs,
Ah, well, alas! alack!
Nowhere to go but out,
Nowhere to come but back.
Nothing to see but sights,
Nothing to quench but thirst,
Nothing to have but what we've got;
Thus thro' life we are cursed.
Nothing to strike but a gait;
Everything moves that goes.
Nothing at all but common sense
Can ever withstand these woes.
