It’s very difficult to intentionally find time to be bored. It’s sort of the opposite of an activity, and the brain hates it. One passable option is to take a 20 minute walk with no stimulus beyond the scenery. Journaling regularly. Meditation provides a similar experience but feels like a different lane.
For me I do find a similar experience to the OP. It’s easy to feel yourself going a little crazy getting sucked along the current of modern life. Flowing from one activity to the next, looking at one’s phone in the between, never any chance for an extended thought except when laying down for bed. If you don’t break out of this mode it’s easy to let weeks go by without noticing or taking much conscious impulse to shape your day.
I go for 2-3 walks a day. Might be temperamental but I kind of go insane being in one place all the time.
When I was staying with a friend, he had a big house, and I'd constantly go downstairs to get coffee. I didn't even need the coffee, it was just a little change of scenery.
It’s always fun to excuse myself out with “i’m gonna go for a walk” and explain “no, like i’m not bored or angry, or anything, i just want to walk around, come join me!”. Especially when i’m staying at my friends’ places.
This is me, but for smoke breaks at work. Half the time I don't need the cigarette, I just need the change of scenery to break up the day.
i'm quitting smoking and kind of nervous about what it's going to be like taking breaks without having the excuse of a cigarette to get up and stretch my legs and get fresh air. i bought one of those xteink pocket-sized ereaders and i'm thinking maybe carrying that with me outside and reading for a few minutes will be an ok simulation, along with a nicotine lozenge.
I quit smoking in February (cold turkey, no lozenge or anything). And I replaced my smoking breaks with walking around the block either at the office or at home. Sometimes I listen to an audiobook, sometimes I just walk with no other stimulus besides a cold bottle of water. I've been really enjoying it, almost as much as smoking a cigarette :)
> It’s very difficult to intentionally find time to be bored.
Today as a software developer I think it's easier than ever. We're already past the "the compiler is building" excuse, but now you can just claim "The agent is thinking/working", and sit and do nothing.
You don't have to switch window/tab as the agent is working, you can just sit there and stare at what it is doing, marvel that this stuff works at all, and let your mind wander if it wants, until the terminal bell goes off.
> It’s very difficult to intentionally find time to be bored.
I have headphones present constantly for the opposite reason. When doing tasks that fail to provide interest (housework, some work tasks) the external stimulus stops me distractedly finding something else (posting on HN for instance!) to do instead of completing the task. Also when running in town, though I don't need it when out on the trails as the scenery is more than enough to sooth my mind into a pleasant state.
The journaling seems like the right direction, but it's still too passive.
If there are three mental modes, two out of three are passive. Let's call this third mode "creative mode". Instead of consuming or meditating, do something else offline that requires developing a skill with your undivided attention.
Even when you're inspired, the interpretation is still your own. There's no way it could ever feel like wasted time because the intrinsic value of experience is so much higher than the other two states.
With enough experience, your own unique ideas will dominate your mind. That's when you finally feel in control.
There is still IMO a way that "creative mode" can be wasted time, and that is when it is being used as a distraction from proper reflection / introspection. The pursuit of creativity / learning can be its own unhealthy obsession too.
Your ending paragraph: "With enough experience, your own unique ideas will dominate your mind. That's when you finally feel in control." also reads as something that could probably also be seen as potentially bad / delusion, in spiritual contexts as well (real control is mostly illusion, you actually do often want other people's ideas to dominate the mind, lest you fall into solipsism / narcissism, etc). Not to pick at your short comment here or presume that though, but it definitely sets off a red flag of some kind.
> you actually do often want other people's ideas to dominate the mind
I don't think this tug of war is necessary. You do, however, make a great point about people who are stressed out.
I wouldn't turn to "creative mode" as a stress management technique. Stress can ruin anything.
The thought has crossed my mind before that the lies and manipulation of a narcissist are a waste of talent.
I've found that swimming helps me to do that. When I walk, it's too easy to take my kindle and read but swimming, it's a relaxing and repetitive movement where I can only focus on thinking.
Same! Although nowadays our sea is hitting record temperatures (28C [~82F] in the water today), and the jellyfish seems to be enjoying it a lot, so swimming is now 50% "relaxing and letting my mind wander" and 50% "shit, that's too many fried egg jellyfishes, lets swim this direction oh no another one"
The way I write my novels is by reviewing a chapter I'm stuck on and its context, then going on a long run, and 20 minutes out, shutting my music off. I have, at that point, at least 20 minutes, if not 60+, where I'm easily thinking about and brainstorming for the chapter. It's wonderful. It sort of "compresses" the ambient sounds in the same way eating pancakes with syrup temporarily destroys your ability to taste slightly less sweet things.
I don't think you need to find time to be bored, the times have always been there and we didn't search them out before. Just don't mask them with multitasking.
Waiting for a bus, waiting in line at a post office, waiting for your wife to get ready for bed. Those moments are still there and if you don't pull your phone out the boredom is still there
> It’s sort of the opposite of an activity, and the brain hates it.
While this is true, I'd word it differently:
It's sort of the opposite of an activity, and we've conditioned our brains to hate it.
Boredom used to be absolutely normal in our society for pretty much ever, and the urge to do something about it when it occurred was a lot weaker than it is now.
I disagree. I remember when I was a kid and didn't have access to smartphones (didn't exist) or other sources of constant entertainment. My days were basically just kindergarten and dicking around with other kids.
But I remember I absolutely dreaded going to the doctor's office, taking a long distance train, or any other kind of "activity" that involved long periods of waiting around. I would find it extremely boring and would try to negotiate with my parents in whatever way I could to avoid going.
I wouldn't necessarily draw any conclusions about our attitudes around this as children. I was exactly the same as you: I hated waiting for anything. Even waiting a few minutes in a grocery store checkout line with one of my parents was absolute torture.
As an adult, it's just not the same. Children's brains are not fully developed, and their desire for stimulus seems very different than an adult's. I think the closest I've come to experiencing this as an adult is in the early '00s. I didn't get my first smartphone until I was nearly 30. I suppose back then I didn't love waiting or being bored, but it wasn't an awful, terrible thing that I just had to fix all the time.
Nowadays I try to avoid filling the quiet times with my phone or some other stimulus. If I'm doing dishes or cleaning up around the house, I let it be quiet, and let my mind wander. If I'm on a train or a bus, I'll do my best to put away my phone and stare out the window, and get lost in my thoughts. If I'm in a waiting room at a doctor's office, I'll people-watch, or just close my eyes and think. It's really nice.
Judging by your name, I presume your Romanian. I think it’s very much ingrained in eastern European culture that sitting around this bad whereas more western cultures do not condemn it so much. So part of your hating the boring activities might be a cultural thing as well, even as a child. Also, it’s a deeply eastern European thing to have to wait around too much at the doctors office. However, I have the same experience with hating it, but I don’t think I had the balls to try to negotiate myself out of it.
> Also, it’s a deeply eastern European thing to have to wait around too much at the doctors office. I remember waiting for an hour or so at the doctor's office in France. The doctor would give appointment times that assumed he'd spend 15 minutes per patients but he was friendly and patient with answering questions so he'd always end up being very late by the time evening came. Had that with multiple doctors so doesn't seem to be unique to Eastern Europe.
> The doctor would give appointment times that assumed he'd spend 15 minutes per patients but he was friendly and patient with answering questions so he'd always end up being very late by the time evening came.
I have a doctor like this, and it's totally worth the wait as she actually listens to people and provides useful information. I do generally try to get a morning appointment with her though, as otherwise it can take a loooooonnnnngggg time.
Yes, the wait is annoying but I do love doctors like this. It's a sign of a great doctor. Just always found it funny that they don't just adjust their appointment time given that the estimate they have is never actually attained in practice.
Mine told me that this always happens, so I schedule my appointments appropriately.
I typically show up an hour late at the doctors office if my appointment is in the afternoon. It gives the doctor some time to catch up on patients and when I show up I’m the next in line. It benefits both of us.
If you did that in the USA, you would lose your appointment and possibly be billed for a no-show.
A bill for healthcare? Foreign concept in Europe.
Hm? They have the Ausfallhonorar in Germany for if you miss a scheduled appointment.
It's not a bill for healthcare. It's a punishment for wasting resources. Like at buffets where they charge you for uneaten food on your plate when you leave.
HCPs in socialized medicine often still get reimbursed based on activity, so a missed appointment means they miss out on reimbursement. Makes sense you ought to owe them for costing them money.
Don't know about "Europe", but in France they're looking into setting up something similar for no-shows. Not sure where the law's at, but it's being considered at least.
I stand corrected
No, I grew up in a western culture and I also hated riding a train for 5 hours without entertainment.
Yep. When I think of my childhood, I think of intensely uncomfortable boredom. Church, school, rainy days with nothing to do, waiting at the dentist's office, I've always thought boredom is one of the worst things you can possibly do to me. I hated it so deeply that those are some of my most vivid memories of being a young lad.
Very fair, and I'd differentiate between being bored as a kid (unbearable) and being bored as an adult (enjoyable to some extent). Maybe "mild meditative zen state" would be a more precise definition than "boredom" in the first place.
Clothes shopping with Mom. I remember how torturous it was. How my brain felt like it was on fire with boredom, and how all-consuming the pain of it all was.
The aversiveness of boredom is not conditioning, but part of its essence and generally is proposed to be its (presumably evolved) function. Boredom is arguably the negative emotion or cognitive mode that drives (or opens up the space for) creativity, exploration, play, and introspection, and this is broadly how it is seen in existential writing and in modern cognitive science and/or psychology.
I'm not convinced boredom was normal per se - people find stuff to do. It's just that the nature of stuff has changed, as has the availability. 20 years ago it was browsing the internet for hours. Before that it was watching TV. Before that there was Other Stuff, like going exploring with a friend (for me). But the 2000s changed things, people got mp3 players and an infinite library of music, smartphones and an infinite amount of activities to do on them at any point of day, internet on the go instead of going to The Space With The Computer, streaming / binging programs instead of having a fixed moment in the day, looking up what's on tonight in the TV guide, or renting a film as a weekend activity.
It's all more instant and always available. I mean books were too (at some point people were complaining about kids these days always reading), but it's different.
Am I worried? A little, because at the same time I keep reminding myself that every generation was worried about what people are up to this time. In 20 years people will probably be nostalgic for today in some way.
You're very right, back in the day a lot of people would complain about people reading newspapers on trains/buses and why these people "just can't let their mind wander" or whatever the argument was. Today you'll instead see people telling others they should put down their phone and read something "physical" instead, I don't think a single person today would complain about others reading books/newspapers on public transport.
In the future some people will surely feel the same about "Device X" and smartphones, and ask themselves "Why can't they be old school and just sit with their smartphone instead?"
"Going exploring with a friend" sounds infinitely more constructive than doomscrolling.
I'm not sure it was, at least growing up country-side, it usually meant "getting up to no good" one way or another, because there is literally nothing else to do, eventually you've done all the "normal" stuff. Going to scare/play with the cows, find an axe and cut some trees down, throw branches at the neighbor kid without them seeing you, build snow-walls to fuck the cars, among other things were common activities, and I don't think a single adult appreciated any of us doing these things.
Eventually the computer appeared though, which did well in keeping us more inside, at least in the non-summer.
Still more constructive.
Go live in the country side, unplug internet and you'll find plenty of boring things to do, of coure if you live in the hellscape of modern cities that smell like shit, piss and car fumes, are noisy as fuck 24/7 and ugly as sin the only natural conclusion you can reach is that you need distraction all the time