Three years ago, some Cambridge University scientists announced that they had determined the most boring day of the Twentieth Century. An algorithm program named “True Knowledge” was put to work to locate the most uneventful day since 1900. The verdict? April 11, 1954.
Of course, a person must be careful with such a proclamation. It’s an entirely subjective call. Some individuals may have had personally important or exciting events happen on April 11, 1954. Some commentators apparently misunderstood the announcement, too. Mistakenly thinking that April 11, 1954 was the most boring day in all of human history is wrong. I came across more than a few commentators trying to disclaim that the date was indeed important. I think they missed the point.
If a person wishes to debunk the “fact” that April 11, 1954 was the most boring day of the 20th Century, all you need to do is express this event. I think that once you declare something the most or least, you’ve added value to whatever it is you’re measuring. The concept is slippery at best. Whenever a label is given to something, suddenly, that thing seems important.
So, if April 11, 1954 is somehow not so boring because it has been named the most boring day, is the second most boring day now the most boring one? Well, no. We run into the same problem. This subjective reckoning can literally go on forever.
What the “True Knowledge” results said was that nothing of immediate consequence happened on that day. It was simply declared that by standards arbitrarily determined by some researchers at Cambridge University were used to set the parameters for what amounts to a glorified Google search for a day that no important people said or did anything of note, nothing happened in any “important” geographical locations, nor any “important” events happened.
I don’t have any first hand knowledge of such an uneventful day. I was less than two-years old at the time. For all practical purposes I probably slept through most of the day. Maybe I was bored spitless? Who knows?
What is my point? Well, April 11th was the most boring day of the century. Isn’t that interesting? Something so stultifyingly, dull and boring suddenly seems interesting.
Ciao
The Blue Jay of Happiness is ready for a short nap after thinking about April 11, 1954.
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