Steve Finbow: You write that desire is similar to boredom; do you think that like fetishes (a concentration of desire) there are particular types or differing degrees of boredom?

Lee Rourke: Yes, I do. I would point anyone towards Heidegger’s three-fold explanation of boredom in his lectures from The Fundamental Concepts of Metaphysics, which are possibly the only real exploration of boredom as an everyday thing in modern philosophy. The narrator of The Canal is continually experiencing each of Heidegger’s proposed degrees of boredom: the first form of boredom is a state of ‘becoming bored by something’, the second is ‘being bored with something and the passing of time belonging to it’ and the third is a form of ‘profound boredom’ where ‘it is boring for one’. It is in the state of ‘profound boredom’ where the feeling of emptiness begins, it is the most challenging form of boredom for Heidegger, and it is where things begin to fall apart for the narrator of The Canal.

¶ 8:24 PM