Martha Cooley Considers the Sociological Significance of Utter Ennui
January 13, 2021
On a damp afternoon a few years ago, descending a stone ramp adjacent to a cobblestone lane, I slipped on a slick patch. Landing on my seat, I bounced upward and sideways off the ramp, rather like a cartoon character. After somehow revolving in midair, I descended to the lane beneath the ramp, where I went
splat on my stomach, arms outspread.
This mishap broke nothing but a tooth, yet for days afterward I was still mentally reviewing the event. In my memory the interval during which I’d been airborne—a matter of a few seconds—had seemed at once fleeting and endless. I’d encountered time as neither infinite nor finite but both at once. And that wasn’t all: I didn’t get tired of recalling that moment. The ineffability of my experience tugged at me; I kept trying to re-conjure the fleeting-yet-endless sensation before I hit the ground. The recollection never bored me. It still doesn’t.