Boredom for Beginners

Writing in the Washington Post, Brigid Schulte, a time-use researcher, quotes an article in a 1959 edition of the Harvard Business Review saying that: “boredom, which used to bother only aristocrats, has become a common curse.”

 It is quite possible that in a future featuring broad artificial intelligence and automation, we will all be cursed with too much leisure time and boredom will become a very common curse. Perhaps many of us have been thrust into such a situation already, with Corona Virus, or at least the threat of it, forcing people out of their workplaces into self-isolation. But will people fortunate enough not to catch the virus die of boredom instead?

I would prefer to think of the issue here as being more to do with insufficient purpose, or meaning, than a sudden excess of free time. This thought links to a comment made by the essayist and columnist Tim Kreide in a 2012 New York Times piece called The Busy Trap: “Busyness serves as a kind of existential reassurance, a hedge against emptiness; obviously, your life cannot possibly be silly or trivial or meaningless if you are so busy.” Or, as the writer, and possibly the world’s first motivational speaker, Dale Carnegie once said: “If you want to conquer fear, don't sit home and think about it. Go out and get busy.” If only.

The problem here is that too much spare time can make people think too deeply, so many people will go to great lengths not to do so. Pascal famously remarked that: “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone,” while Yeats said that: “It takes more courage to examine the dark corners of your own soul than it does for a soldier to fight on a battlefield.”

There are studies to back this up. One, by the Psychology Departments at the Universities of Virginia and Harvard, found that subjects did not enjoy spending a mere 15 minutes in a room by themselves with nothing to do. Most people far preferred mundane activities over boredom, with some preferring to administer electric shocks to themselves rather than being left alone.

The boredom associated with being left alone, or not having much to do, is a reason why people eat too much chocolate, drink too much alcohol, write too many posts on LinkedIn (guilty!) and watch too many funny cat videos. Naturally, in the wake of Corona, there are viral videos showing people going crazy with their own company or that of their family. Thaasophobia is the fear of idleness. It can lead to anxiety, but also riches. Micro-moments of boredom are one reason why Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey are billionaires.

But boredom avoidance platforms like Facebook and Twitter come at a cost. Boredom is a function of attention and the more we satisfy our desire to be distracted the less we simply look around and observe the world around us.

We like ‘doing’ or what might nowadays be referred to as being ‘message-orientated’ because this removes the necessity of being with oneself. It also covers up any fears we may have of feeling alone. Being busy is directly correlated with boredom, but also with a desire to absent oneself from oneself, to not fully inhabit the present.

What’s such a shame here is that boredom, moments of not being engaged or busy if you like, are great moments for introspection and creativity, and wonderful moments for developing character, patience, perseverance and resilience. As the philosopher Bertrand Russell put it, boredom is: “one of the great motive powers throughout the historical epoch.”

An example of boredom being a motive power might be Thomas Edward Lawrence. 10-days of dysentery laid him low in a tent while the Arab Revolt raged around him. Deprived of anything to do but think he realised that the Arabs didn’t need to confront the far stronger forces of the Ottoman Empire head on, but should engage in a guerrilla campaign. This proved hugely successful and became both the prelude to the modern Middle East and the birth of Lawrence of Arabia.

Another example of boredom being a catalyst might be Don Bradman. This name may not be familiar to non-Australians or anyone under fifty-years-of-age, but Bradman was an Australian cricketer. In fact, he was the Australian cricketer. He was the greatest batsman, and one of the finest fielders, that ever lived. Did he have talent? Undoubtedly. Did he put in 10,000 hours of practice? For sure. But, more likely, he developed his skill because he didn’t have much else to do at one point. Boredom might not be the right word, but Bradman wasn’t spoilt for choice when it came to things to do at home when he was growing up.

Bradman grew up in Cootamundra, a tiny town in New South Wales. There wasn’t much going on in Cootamundra, so Don had to occupy himself for days on end. One of his favourite pastimes was bouncing a golf ball against a corrugated iron water tank and hitting it with a one inch stick on its return. Because the tank was both round and corrugated, the small ball would come at him in all directions. But he never gave up. He persisted. As a result, he developed “an eye like a gimlet” and “hands like quicksilver.”

Perhaps schools should have lessons modelled on these examples, lessons where children are told go outside and invent something to do by themselves. Or maybe teachers could teach what Jennifer Roberts, a Professor at Harvard, calls “the value of deceleration and immersive attention.” What a shame that schools all rushed to put ordinary lessons and teachers online during the lock-down when there was an opportunity to do something far easier and potentially more powerful – to engage with whatever world is right under kid’s noises, be it building new cities out of empty cereal boxes or, for older children, finding the deep structure of the universe in a star or a snow flake. The entire sweep of human history, the whole universe in fact, is quite literally in our hands if we look closely enough. For me, at least, this is not only liberating and reassuring, but centering and grounding in times like these too.

Believe it or not there’s a book about all this. Boredom: The Literary History of a State of Mind. Its author, Patricia Meyer Spack, makes a number of illuminating points, including noting that boredom, as a concept, didn’t exist before the 18th Century. She also points out, quite rightly, that boredom is a subjective, or self-diagnosed, condition, which frequently involves a victim and a perpetrator. In the current situation, we are bored because we are being forced away from our usual routines by Corona Virus. Boredom is seen as an obstacle, or barrier, preventing us from doing what we desire or feel entitled to do.

But what if we flipped this idea on its head? Rather than a barrier, what if we started to see boredom an impetus for action or invention. Yes, boredom can be boring, but it has many upsides too. It pushes us to seek out new experiences and meanings. It prevents us from going down the same old road and opens our eyes and ears to new possibilities. Boredom allows us to learn new skills. Most importantly of all, boredom allows our minds to wander. Neurologically, this is known as undirected thought and there is plenty of evidence to support the idea that something very useful is occurring when this happens. A wandering mind (often a result of wandering legs, so get out and go for a walk today) is the foundation of observation and imagination, upon which all great science, art and invention rest.

I will leave you all today with the thought that we should all embrace boredom. Chances are we will never be presented with an opportunity quite like this ever again and so we must not waste this fallow time. We should fully occupy this moment and not concern ourselves with whatever might come next. We should not rush to find things to do, things will find us given enough time.

One of the best films to capture the thought of simply being, of being in the moment and nowhere else, is perhaps Zorba the Greek, based on the novel of the same name by the great Greek writer Nikos Kazantzakis. In the book, Zorba says the following:  “I remember one morning when I discovered a cocoon in the back of a tree just as a butterfly was making a hole in its case and preparing to come out. I waited awhile, but it was too long appearing and I was impatient. I bent over it and breathed on it to warm it. I warmed it as quickly as I could and the miracle began to happen before my eyes, faster than life. The case opened; the butterfly started slowly crawling out, and I shall never forget my horror when I saw how its wings were folded back and crumpled; the wretched butterfly tried with its whole trembling body to unfold them. Bending over it, I tried to help it with my breath, in vain. It needed to be hatched out patiently and the unfolding of the wings should be a gradual process in the sun. Now it was too late. My breath had forced the butterfly to appear all crumpled, before its time. It struggled desperately and, a few seconds later, died in the palm of my hand. That little body is, I do believe, the greatest weight I have on my conscience. For I realize today that it is a mortal sin to violate the great laws of nature. We should not hurry, we should not be impatient, but we should confidently obey the eternal rhythm.”

 Good advice for times like these, and for all times ever after.