Lack of exciting things

Well, it turns out that a Google of "lack of exciting things" turns up a bunch of posts where people are talking about things they find almost uncontrollably exciting.
So, what makes something exciting? It appears to be linked to a new event/discovery/thought process. (Just a quick review of the links that come up from the Google search.)

People have written about their jobs, about techno music releases, some IBM program, and mother-son purity pledges. (What?)

It's not unusual that excitement is linked to discovery; the rush of the "a-ha!" moment. So who are the people who are afraid of that moment? Breaking it down into something perhaps more simple, who are the people afraid of something new?

According to The Phobia List people with a fear of something new could be classified under at least 2 phobias: Cainophobia or Cainotophobia (fear of newness, novelty), and Cenophobia or Centophobia (fear of new things or ideas).

(This is a pretty interesting list on just the first glance. How accurate it is I don't know, but all the Internet is but a gateway to more information. On a side note, Alektorophobia apparently is a fear of chickens.)

Luddites (Thank you Wikipedia, another great starting point for gathering information) are, I suppose, the most well known example of an organized group with a fear of new things. It wasn't an irrational fear, however. It was a fear that the new industrial methods would negate the need for human labor, and thereby put them out of work. In a time when skilled trades were the norm the potential that the skill could be made easier, and accessible to those without the skill, had to be pretty intimidating.

Sometimes it was the skill itself which was intimidating. Blacksmiths, for example, practiced metallurgy, which was a lot like alchemy to the unskilled. Basically, it was magic. People could watch it happen with their own eyes, touch the results with their fingers; but try to explain why working one metal could help to produce another metal (this is a real basic explanation on my part, I know there's more involved) and those without the skill just couldn't grasp it.

My grandmother thinks the toaster is magic. On a grander scale, so is the computer.

But I digress, because my grandmother is a sweet old woman and if she wants to think the toaster is magic I'm not going to stop her.

Without understanding people resort to simply accepting the process as something other worldly. Therefore, a loom could potentially work on its own, replacing those who once ran it. That loom represents more than a new idea, which could possibly make the job of the skilled laborer more efficient, more enjoyable even. That loom represents uncertainty, it represents unidentifiable potential, and that potential could be bleak. We could all end up batteries for robot farms.

And who wouldn't feel like they suffered from a little bit of Cenophobia if that's where the mind takes you?

It is easy to get excited about an event/discovery/thought process IF the conclusion takes you to someplace that is still familiar. But what about when it doesn't? What happens when the conclusion is so alien, so unfamiliar, that the only explanation is "magic"? Superstition makes some run in fear from the discovery (or call the toaster a stupid machine when the bread becomes a charred brick of it's former wholesome goodness). Superstition would appear to be the comfort zone of the Cenophobe. And at that point the explanation is unnecessary. There is no longer room for "a-ha!". And the potential for excitement is gone.

Today I learned that ... hhmmmm ... today I learned that, um, yeah. After all that pontification about excitement, today I learned that STILL there was a lack of exciting things happening in my life today.