““Do you regret coming then?†“Not really. For some reason I’d still rather be here than in Berlin.†His eyes widened. “Why? I’d rather be in Berlin.†“I don’t know. Everything just sort of functions there, you know? It’s boring.†We passed a Soviet tank that was now a memorial of their war of independence. Sergei’s dad had fought in it. “Boredom is a luxury good,†he said. I gasped. Boredom is a luxury good. This simple statement dug its claws into me and didn’t let go. Of course. I’d lost sight of the extraordinary privilege inherent within boredom. Most people in the world don’t get to decide whether or not to engage in politics. Don’t feel so safe and secure and bored that they actively go out looking for danger, just to feel more alive. Having a life like that didn’t make me normal—it made me special. I was the unusual one. The weirdo. The outlier. Boredom was not the enemy. My ingratitude of it was. I’d been looking at it wrong. Writing it off as a commodity, when for most of the world it would be impossibly luxurious. “I’d happily swap your boring normal life for mine.†Sergei smirked. Fletcher, Adam. Don’t Go There: From Chernobyl to North Korea—one man’s quest to lose himself and find everyone else in the world’s strangest places (p. 176). Kindle Edition. Fletcher, Adam. Don’t Go There: From Chernobyl to North Korea—one man’s quest to lose himself and find everyone else in the world’s strangest places (p. 176). Kindle Edition. ”
