For the first time in a long time, I was honestly bored Sunday afternoon. Honest to goodness, stare out the window, “What should I do now?” boredom. Frankly, it was wonderful!
It is quite telling to see our society’s collective anxiety about “being alone in a quiet room.” We’ve armed ourselves with gadgets and doodads which not only provide a steady stream of entertainment, but stimulate our eyes, brains, and pleasure centers into addiction-like patterns of behavior, checking our phones every spare second dozens of times each day. We haven’t been “alone” in fifteen years. How exactly does one happen upon boredom in the twenty-first century?
First, some context. I stay off social media on the weekends, so scrolling on my phone wasn’t an option. My husband was out of town for the week, leaving me with the house to myself. This particular Sunday, the Internet didn’t seem to hold anything but partisan bickering, so I abstained from going online, as well. I had read in assorted books most of the day, and wanted to take a break. This being a Sabbatical Week, I had no impending work preparations to tend to. I already had been outside and even made some photos of our blooming flowers and trees. I had accomplished what I’d set out to do for the day, but it was only three in the afternoon. I had eaten lunch; it was too early for dinner. What to do? Nothing around the house seemed interesting, so I simply sat at the dining room table looking out the window, thinking, “When was the last time I was honestly bored?”
When we are bored, our first instinct usually is to banish the feeling. We often pick up a phone or find something else to do before we even process the feeling. Boredom is not simply an absence of potential activities. It’s the realization what we are currently doing isn’t engaging our mind and we would rather do something more appealing. I, of course, had things I could do – a few unpacked boxes standing accusingly in corners; an entire library of books I could flip through; I could rearrange the house; the great outdoors are always available. Yet, rather doing any of these things, I sat amazed at the feeling of being bored. It’s such a rare experience, I couldn’t simply dismiss it.
So I sat there, and wondered at my boredom. Of all the things I’ve done in the past eight or so years, being bored was a novel experience.
The recognition one is bored isn’t necessarily a bad thing. It’s not even necessarily feeling an absence. It is the sensation of margin, of space, room to sit and think. A recent edition of the journal Frontiers in Psychology described boredom as a “push” toward something we might find more compelling or interesting. Schopenhauer called it one of the twin evils of life (the other being ‘pain’). Kierkegaard lamented the absence of meaning he derived from boredom, but Bertrand Russell considered boredom an integral lesson for children to learn. Regardless of whether it is good, bad, or a mixed bag, boredom has been a rather universal part of human civilization for centuries, at least. Is it possible this realization that one is “not happy” and might be happier doing something else not part of the human condition? And more concerning, if we aren’t experiencing boredom are we missing out on a vital part of the human experience?
Our generation and society is the first where a conspicuous lack of boredom has become the norm. We’ve yet to truly see what happens in its total absence. My prediction (and fear) is, without boredom, we are more likely to sweep over those deep feelings of profound pride or unhappiness, or belonging, going months or years without ever feeling anything deeper than the rush of social media or catching up on the latest series. No emotion, good or bad, registering for more than a second before the next one is brought up. If we think no deeper than the next dopamine hit, how does this impact our ability to weigh and decide important decisions? How does one navigate the discomfort involved in life’s bigger moments, if they haven’t encountered the tame discomfort of boredom on a lazy afternoon? How does one process profound discontentment without having experienced mild discontentment? How does one pursue a monumental goal, if they haven’t even recognized they might be ready for a challenge?
Boredom occupies the space between what we’re doing and what we think we’d like to be doing. It’s the awareness – again, not necessarily negative – that what we’re currently doing is not maintaining our attention. To live without such awareness is to miss out on fundamental aspects of human life and the human condition. It’s to forgo life’s heights and depths, instead humming along in a fuzzy state of constant, but tolerable distraction. We float on, amusing ourselves with shallow headlines and scripted dramas, with devices able to skip us along from input to input, post to post, notification bell to notification bell.
There’s a line in the opening chapters of Brave New World, where Huxley’s narrator identifies the aim of the conditioning performed on the growing, ahem, incubating, children. “Feeling,” he says, “lurks in that interval between desire and consummation.” This is the feeling which is conditioned out of each citizen in the novel. Boredom, anticipation, unease, exuberance; all are potential feelings of the “in between” and all are banished in Huxley’s society. There, people no longer have to deal with troublesome emotions like uncertainty. Boredom is a problem left to history. Families, relationships, emotions, individual milestones; these all have the potential for a darker side, a potential to be unmet desires. They are therefore abolished. However, the most unsettling aspect of Huxley’s master work is the knowledge this society yielded to automation and technological overlords – not as a result of conquest – but because their priority was maximizing their own individual pleasure. One can’t help but notice the similarities between the aims of the dystopian Hatchery and our current society which insists each person should feel “empowered,” to “live out your truth” and always “be celebrated for being you.” No room for uncertainty there.
The problem is, under all the soma, all the “Likes,” all the feel-good memes, all “boss babe” tinsel and hashtag “winning”, humans will still have to find a way to navigate the dynamics of life, which is to say, uncertainty. Life contains great moments and tragic moments, but mostly, the mundane space in between, for life is overwhelmingly composed of mundane moments. Perhaps, in a world full of connectivity, but lacking connection, being a bit under-scheduled – allowing oneself to be bored – is a pivotal and critical act in maintaining one’s humanity.
Image: “Woman Seated on a Sofa” by Walter Crane, c. 1865–1915.
