Boredom
Well, we’ve made it though another week, which right now feels like a major accomplishment. I continue to experience wild polarities of mood, alternating between paralyzing anxiety and blissful relaxation. But, as days wear on, I notice that the parts in me that are tightly wound are starting to uncoil, starting to release, and sink into a new pace, a new shape.
Some days I want to play music for hours, and some days I don’t want to touch my instrument at all. Some days I crave connection and seek it online, and some days I only look at my phone as a useless brick of anxiety-provoking junk. I have been leaving it plugged in, lying there on silent more and more. I am finding time instead to go outside, to dream and journal, or just to sit and listen.
And in this space, this new and rare thing is starting to creep in – like a rare bird just clinging to a new habitat to see if it is suitable. I see it flit in just every now and then and fly away just as fast…Boredom.
We as a society are completely afraid of boredom. We hate it. We do everything possible to avoid it. We structure every moment for ourselves, our kids, and our colleagues.
A Recent article in the New York Times called “Stop Trying to Be Productive” really resonated with me. It expounded upon the pressure we feel to always be productive, especially millennials. We feel a need for continual self improvement and ‘optimization’ - in which boredom is the complete enemy. For example, how many of us have had this thought: Heading out for a run or long walk, “I better listen that podcast on seven productive morning habits.” Somehow the time outside is not enough. And even in this time when the world is in crisis we are somehow led believe that we should be “using this time” to do something, instead of just survive and be ok. I don’t know where this insatiable drive comes from; I for one, often fall prey to its rancor.
I sit here now, one month into this Great Pause, elemental isolation and slowdown, I listen to the birds as I drink my coffee and I feel the edges of this insatiable drive fall away just enough to ask, “Why?” It is time to let some of this beautiful and elusive boredom creep in.
I have spent a lot of the last month reading the Essays of E.B. White, written as he moved from New York City to a farmstead in rural Maine. The timing of the writing is especially interesting; it’s striking how often he cites the slow down as a source for his inspiration. In fact, as I sit in my own slow-down and reflect, I am forced to confront the fact that many great thinkers and artists throughout history advocate, with great import, this “slow-time”, this space to THINK. Being not productive, content to just let the mind wander & meander. Albert Einstein for instance, went for a walk every day and said that he did all his best thinking during this mind-wandering time. It is only very recently that the walk has become not enough. Only in the last 20 years have we become uncomfortable with unstructured time and termed ‘boredom’ as the ultimate enemy to achievement.
We continue to resist, but I am starting to believe that boredom – this elusive creature – is not just conducive to creativity but necessary. That space where you mind can wonder and roam in new directions is the birthplace of original thought.
Research in Neuroscience actually supports this! You need that “boredom,” or the “default mode” as neuroscientists call it, to let your brain daydream and wander slightly into the subconscious to form new connections. It is actually a different operating phase of your brain! Watch Manoush Zomorodi’s Brilliant Ted Talk Here entitled “How boredom can lead to you most creative ideas.” (Highly Worth it!) I am a convert, #boredandbrilliant . One quote that really struck me is “if you have never known life without connectivity you may have never experienced boredom.” Researchers have found that teenagers, for example, who are on social media while doing homework or talking to friends, “…two years down the road are less creative and imaginative about their own personal futures and about solving societal problems.”
She challenges us by asking why we fill our time and if “If it is to distract yourself from the hard work that comes with deeper thinking… take a break, stare out the window. and know that by doing nothing you are actually being your most productive and creative self.”
So what about this “productive self” image? I don’t want to bring this post down to a war against tech, because it is not about that. Errant use of technology is just one big thing that constantly fills out time. This story instead is about the discomfort we feel when we let that space in, even for a moment. It is about the pressure we feel from society, particularly in modern American culture, to always be doing more. We have created a monstrous narrative that we must be productive and that time is commoditized in terms of profit and self-improvement (to return to the NYtimes article). The idea that quantity is more important than quality is just not true and we know that. There is pressure to be to constantly creating but not necessarily creative. How have we been lead to believe that somehow our self worth is measured in terms of the output? That during this time of global crisis what matters is how busy we are. I, for one, am not ok with that.
“ Our new found wealth of time sits with no space to store it, because we are so uncomfortable holding it. ”
Overnight our society changed from one in which time was the most precious resource to a society in which we are drowning in it. Our new found wealth of time sits with no space to store it, because we are so uncomfortable holding it. Like barrels of oil with no place to go, we are throwing our time at whatever we can - kitchen projects, new gardens, reorganizing closets, live streams for everything, new videos - hoping something will soak it up.
As a performing artist, I am staring ahead at most likely six months of canceled work with no idea how or when I will be able to return to performing, not to mention the unknown and massive changes that may happens to our industry after that. There is much to think about, and it is uncomfortable. It is hard to sit through it, but I find as I fill the pages of my journal, these bits of tightly wound panic dissipate and actually underneath it all is something beautiful. Mornings, I sit with my coffee for longer spaces of time than ever before and just listen to
the birds in the trees outside. And for the first time, in a long time, new melodies enter my head…
* * *
So what if we took all the pressure off?
No pressure to create, no “should’s” - (regardless of what you see online)
And just stayed open to that space…Let it creep in.
Without filling it. Without turning away from the discomfort.
We might daydream
We might take time to listen to the silence
We might let some uncomfortable thoughts in for processing, yes
This is my challenge to myself and to you - give boredom a chance and see what happens.
“This is my challenge to myself and to you :
give boredom a chance and see what happens. ”