Do you ever get bored of being you?

I’m not talking self-rejection, a dangerous pathology requiring treatment. Doing oneself in is almost always a bad idea. (The irrecoverably moribund should be permitted pleasant farewells.)

I mean the tedium of the same old food on a plate – not this again – or listening to oneself repeat a stale joke. I mean sociable blah-blah to no end. Or wolfing that pint of coffee chocolate chip I’d vowed not to. I sometimes catch myself quoting myself – I hate people who quote themselves! – pomposity and sloth combined. It’s not that I’d prefer to be anybody else or lament my choices: on balance, I turned out OK, all things considered. I’ve no urge to flee this fabrication I call Carll. I just want a vacation from vocation, the adventure of outlawry maybe, though I’m way too responsible to risk it. (That pint of coffee chocolate chip may be the pathetic extent of my rebellion.)

Do I see some heads nodding as we move into paragraph four? I can’t be the only one. Yet who mentions such disgruntlement even to one’s beloved? For one thing, it’s a sigh without a solution – and might spur concern. (Is Carll OK?) For another, it’s discreditable. We spend time and effort validating our choices in life: does this groaning suggest we chose wrong?

Dog-pal Henry assures me this is a human symptom. He’s happy as a proverbial clam being himself: his where, what, and how couldn’t be pleasanter, thanks, or, if they’re not, chill, things change. Regret posits a preferable outcome, which is rubbish; dachshunds never morph into Great Danes, or vice versa, regardless of either’s dreams. Humans torment themselves with “roads not taken.” (Henry rolls his eyes at that famous Robert Frost poem, which Carll cherishes.) The subjunctive is a junkyard for the spirit: “Coulda been a contender?” – give me a break!

Younger, I treated my megrims more charitably. I took myself seriously, investigating my existence as an existential example. Now mostly I laugh at my absurdity. I envy Henry’s ease. His approach to being is so much saner than mine: take it as it comes, live and let live, let bygones be bygone, why fuss?

My therapy for self-boredom is to toss my brain out the window from the umpteenth floor and watch it flap. I’m guessing this is why people play mind-games – crosswords, Sudoku, and the like – using intellect to escape intellect. Playing a game one is absent while present, one’s self but not really. My particular addiction is backgammon, which I play online. “What a waste of time!” I chide myself, as the hours tick by. Is besting or surrendering to some shmo from Bulgaria really my highest use? I am a worm and no man, fulminous with self-disgust – and having a whale of a time. (An airborne whale? Oh well. Disneyesque.) I cannot read to escape, because reading gets me thinking about writing, which gets me thinking about me, my most wearisome rut. Oh, to escape introspection! But then how would my brain busy itself – mightn’t it start devouring itself like the ouroboros?

For millennia, spin doctors for the perfect deity – a.k.a., priests – insisted Man was God’s masterpiece, then struggled to explain away our imperfections (see, theodicy). I’m convinced, if God made Man, He was having a bad day, only Time – another of God’s Big Ideas – permits no do-overs. Human nature is irrevocable, irreparable, and – as headlines indicate daily – flawed, perhaps fatally. I’d rather be a dog. But Henry assures me Dogdom has closed its borders; swarming human refugees threaten the purity of their workforce.