It is one of the most important questions, because man is the only animal who feels boredom. Buffaloes don’t feel it, although they look very much bored. Donkeys don’t feel it, although they too look very much bored. Except man, nobody feels boredom; and even as far as man is concerned, all men don’t feel boredom. It needs intelligence to feel boredom, so very few, the most intelligent people in the world, feel boredom. Buddha felt it, Mahavira felt it. The rarest people feel boredom because it needs tremendous intelligence to experience it. So in a way it is not a curse, it is a blessing.

It is out of boredom that the inquiry for the meaning of life arises. Those who have felt bored simply show that whatsoever ordinary meanings life has, are no longer fulfilling for them. There are people who are perfectly happy with money, accumulating more and more money, and they seem to be immensely interested in it, perfectly happy with their search for more. These are not really developed human beings: they are the most mediocre human being, the lowest kind. Their intelligence has not yet become a flowering; it is still in the seed, only a potential.

You can see it. The people who are greedy may be clever and cunning – they have to be – but you will never see any intelligence in them. You will not see the sharpness, you will not see any creativity in them. You will not see any fragrance in their lives; they will stink. The greedy person stinks.

And so is the case with the power-hungry, the politician, who is always running after more and more powerful positions, far higher status, who wants to become the president or the prime minister, whose whole life is devoted to the single purpose of dominating people.

These people are dull people. Their life is that of the ugliest form. They don’t have any sense of beauty, poetry, music. They don’t have any sense for aesthetics Their whole interest is in bigger chairs, as if by sitting on bigger chairs they will become bigger, as if by becoming a president of a country they will have attained some spiritual integrity, as if by dominating millions of people they will become masters of their own being. They are empty people, hollow; their inner life is utterly dark. But you will never see them bored. They are always on the go, always interested in stupid efforts of gaining power, prestige, money. But they are contented; if they are succeeding you will see them very joyous.

It is the most intelligent people who feel boredom, who cannot see any meaning in money. Of course, there is certain utility in money, but no meaning. Who cannot see any meaning, any significance, in power politics, in ego trips, who can see the utter futility of it all – now for people of such intelligence the greatest problem in life will be boredom.