RE: Tedium

Bliss - a-second-by-second joy and gratitude at the gift of being alive, conscious - lies on the other side of crushing, crushing boredom. Pay attention to the most tedious thing you can find (Tax Returns, Televised Golf) and, in waves, a boredom like you've never known will wash over you and just about kill you. Ride these out, and it's like stepping from black and white into color. Like water after days in the desert. Instant bliss in every atom.

-David Foster Wallace, from his notes for The Pale King, a novel on transcendence, boredom, and the IRS.

Excerpts from The Pale King give us a glimpse into the uber-boring world of an IRS office and offer some interesting strategies for coping. Whilst checking forms for accuracy, IRS clerks pause to envision soothing tropical paradises and frequently clench and unclench their butt cheeks. 

Whether this an actual practice by IRS agents discovered during Wallace's extensive research and preparation or an entirely fictional creation could not be verified by my own cursory Google search.

*Wallace hung himself in his garage before completing The Pale King, casting serious doubts on the validity of his insights into how to cope with the tedium of human life. 

** Wallace was also an accomplished tennis player and scholar of the game. Read an article he wrote on Roger Federer (one of his last completed works).