This article is more than 1 month old Rather than seeking distraction, letâs pay attention to peopleâs thoughts and feelings during this period of monotony âIn Beckettâs Endgame, Clov asks: âDo you believe in the life to come?ââ Simon McBurney as Clov, left, and Mark Rylance (Hamm) in Endgame in 2009. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian âIn Beckettâs Endgame, Clov asks: âDo you believe in the life to come?ââ Simon McBurney as Clov, left, and Mark Rylance (Hamm) in Endgame in 2009. Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian Tue 9 Mar 2021 03.00 EST Last modified on Tue 9 Mar 2021 13.08 EST Boredom and ennui used to be counted among the deadly sins, either bundled together with sloth, or denounced separately. Boredom was considered a spiritual torpor that led to despair and nihilism: in Danteâs Inferno, âacediaâ is a state of listlessness associated with âtristitiaâ, sadness, and offenders are plunged into fetid black mud that chokes them as they cry and sob. When I heard some young people in a refugee camp interviewed about their experiences in 2016, it wasnât the harshness of the conditions or worries about their future that they dwelt on. It was the lack of something to do that made them most weary. Like Danteâs sufferers in the mud of hell, they were afflicted with boredom.