I read an article of a study by a physicist named Albert-Laszlo Barabasi, who figured out that people are inherently 'boring' by using anonymous phone records to track peoples movements for a year. It was found that even people that weren't typical homebodies still behaved predictably, but why is this exactly, I wondered. I think as human beings we feel a need to glorify our lives past that of the common animal, but in the end, are we all not looking for a warm nest to sleep in, some food to eat and a nice patch of land on which to take a shit? The part of our lives that we may consider exciting would probably only be a small percentage of our time and in typical fashion, these are usually the memories that fill our heads when we day dream and reflect upon our existence. This being what it is, it makes me think, that if all that we inherently find stimulating happens to be activities that make up a small percentage of how we spend our time, then is our level of interest in something proportional to the amount of time we spend doing it? It would make sense that we are hard wired with "duty" in mind, that any species would be invariably be doomed if it simply worried about its excitement level and cared not for the bare essentials. It could also be a neurochemical impossibility for someone to live in a state of constant mental stimulus, as it would require a steady release of normally exhaustible levels of serotonin and dopamine.
So I guess what the big question is how much does time govern our enjoyment of things in life? Are our constant and fundamental shifts in interest a genetic advantage—compelling us to achieve different skills and knowledge, as well as diversity the sources we seek for stimulation? Humans usually live a much different lifestyle than most wild animals, due to the fact that our food is readily available, our mortality is more closely guarded, and we basically have the luxury to entertain higher thoughts because all of our primal needs are fulfilled.
I sometimes contemplate the question of who is truly happier: the person that experiences positive stimulus all the time or someone who only experiences it now and then? One could argue that if you seek sustenance from something constantly that there is some sort of deficiency that you are trying to compensate for, that perhaps by constantly seeking gratification, we are only putting off the inevitable lack of it. Is it possible to want fun just for fun or is there a reason we are compelled towards enjoyment? What is the primal reason for fun? Is it indeed an off shoot of higher brain function--that it's an ideological spit in the face of the survivalist instincts that pervade us all, because let's face it— we're all practically hairless, soft-skinned, and inherently interdependent creatures that are virtually at the mercy of mother nature or man kind at any given moment.
I just think its funny how what is usually really important to our survival is sometimes at the bottom of the list of priorities, while what is simply for the sake of fun is at the top. Modern living is indeed a struggle between the scavenger and the poet, the animal and the man, and of the worm and the hawk. We live between two realms, one a direct reaction to the world around us and the other a reaction to the world we build in our heads. In the end though, does it matter if stimulation is external or if it is self-created and what really gets through to us any way, for the brain has as many filters as it does lenses, governing what we interpret and ignore, be it in the interest of self-preservation or good old fashioned hedonism.
So in closing, I know why people are predictable and the reason is because we are all fundamentally the same. We have needs and we will fulfill them whenever we can and often times at whatever price. Maybe it is this way so that deep down all of us can be somewhat in tune with everyone else. So that we can essentially synch our individual patterns with other peoples because they are inherently constant and formulaic, making our individual efforts more efficient by having intimate knowledge of other peoples movements around us. Simply put, by being predictable, we are ensuring other people can predict us and that we can predict them and that the hive mind that is all of thinking combined, can move forward—not as individuals—but as a species in general. For even despite all our differences and conflicts, we work more in unison now then we ever have, mostly on behalf of technology, which of course is just another byproduct of our own desires. So if any one ever calls you boring, you can tell them, it’s the human way, just as it is their right to be a douchebag.
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