Boredom is a Driving Force

Boredom is a breeding ground for ideas to take creative shapes. Artists have used boredom as a springboard to jump and reach lofty heights. All great philosophies have been first incubated and nurtured in the empty space of boredom and only then shown the light of the world. Scientific ideas routinely take shape after the monotony of working with what is already known. Escape from boredom is the driving force that has shaped several lives that people know as great. Yet, the fact remains: no one likes boredom. It is too uncomfortable for several people and too annoying for many others.

Why We Fear Boredom? 

For people living with too many comforts in the current digital world boredom is simply a “bad company” that must be avoided just like they have been taught to avoid pain and bad dreams. It is easy to understand why people want to avoid pain – because pain is obviously painful – and why bad dreams or nightmares are problems – because they can expose them to their worst fears and make them scream and run for cover. But one fails to understand why an absolutely non-invasive situation – boredom – is so unbearable to deserve the phrase “bored to death”. When someone is not busy it should be a time to relax and be happy; why get “bored to death”, as they say! It sounds silly to me.

In as much as someone is a pain in my neck, a situation gives me nightmares, or something bores me to death the message is very clear: my capacity to handle discomfort is badly limited so please help me. It is another way of saying: as the comforts in my life are increasing my capacity to handle unease is decreasing. 

With too many ways to keep busy in today’s world, we have lost familiarity with boredom. It appears unusual because it forces us to sit and pay attention to what is happening to us. And being reflective is not something that comes very naturally to us, mainly because we’re out of practice for generations. 

Philosophy of Boredom

Without motivation or focus, we are confronted with nothingness – emptiness and meaninglessness of existence – and experience existential anxiety. 

We’re afraid of boredom because it denotes emptiness and lack of progress and underscores the fear of lagging behind in competition. This fear keeps us constantly in motion regardless of whether it adds any value to life or its quality. In this sense, we view boredom as a negative thing due social conditioning.  

According to Erich Fromm and other thinkers, boredom is a common psychological response to industrial society, where people are required to engage in alienated labor. It is perhaps the most important source of aggression and destructiveness today. In Fromm’s opinion, the constant search for thrills and novelty that characterizes consumer culture is not the solution to boredom, but mere distractions from boredom which continues unconsciously.  

Boredom Research

Much of the research on boredom has focused on the bad company it keeps – from depression, overeating, smoking, drugs, etc. So, it is not wrong to say that most of the studies have been co-relational rather than studying the mental state of boredom. 

After studying decades of research on boredom, Teresa Belton and Esther Priyadharshini of East Anglia University in England concluded that it’s time that boredom “be recognized as a legitimate human emotion that can be central to learning and creativity.” 

Boredom is more than just flagging of interest or a precursor to mischief – it is a time out to recast the outside world in ways that can be productive and creative. It is a tool for sorting information — a sensitive spam filter.

When boredom is a temporary state it reflects the obvious – that the brain has concluded there is nothing new, interesting, or useful in the current activity. When bored the brain withdraws but does not become passive. In this state of withdrawal time appears to drag on than when the mind is absorbed. Unlike the self imposed boredom of repetitive activity of meditation, in the routine life it is frustrating and restless. This makes boredom a state that demands relief – if not from a conversation, then from some mental challenge.

Military boredom has been studied since World War II by a variety of researchers – a common conclusion is that boredom leads to alienation, followed by resentment and anger. 

Technological Tools and Boredom

“By his very success in inventing labor-saving devices modern man has manufactured an abyss of boredom that only the privileged classes in earlier civilizations have ever fathomed.” – Lewis Mumford 

We’ve done our best to send boredom into extinction. First, it was the TV that mesmerized us; the first models were primitive and without “remote” which also gave us extra exercise because we had to repeatedly leave the couch to change channel and then sit back to watch. But as number of channels increased, someone not very pleased with the free fitness benefits invented the “remote” that turned us into couch potatoes. Since then this remote guy is keeping us tuned, but not very toned. However, as a side effect we lost the skill to sit quiet and relax – and wrongly labeled it boredom.

Then came the worst enemy of boredom in the form of Internet and communication technology. Now we have ipods, smarter-than-us phones, electronic readers, and a host of other devices to keep us distracted from ourselves. All this state of the art weaponry is aimed at only one perceived enemy, boredom, with the only one line message to humanity “We shall no longer allow you to be bored.”

Just as we respect the call of the nature, we are obliged to respect this call from the technology that is wholeheartedly devoted to keep us away from the claws of boredom. So, we all live religiously under the shadow and protection of Internet and digital gadgetry almost round the clock. 

However, the voices in favor of boredom are not all dead and constantly remind us that it’s boredom that leads to innovation. It’s boredom that forces us to dig deep to discover new twists and turns on existing ideas, and come up with better technology. If we continue to shut all door to boredom we’ll have no way of reaching our inner core. And that will not only impact us as individual humans but will also narrow the scope of innovations and limit the growth of the society.

Boredom and Creativity 

There is no message from god almighty to say that everyone has to get glued to the facilities of digital revolution all the time. If one feels that it is OK to be hopping sites on Internet like a frog round the clock or must immediately tell the whole world that “my cat is depressed today”, one should have the freedom. After all digital revolution is all about expression in as many ways as possible. 

Despite all the temptations of digital world creativity of scientists, artists, doctors, and entrepreneurs will never be threatened because they are smart and won’t allow the trivial thrill of technological facilities to divert their attention from the bigger goals. They will preserve some quiet moments for the creativity to germinate and grow.

10 Boredom Quotes 

"Extreme boredom provides its own antidote."  — Francois Duc De La Rochefoucauld

"The life of the creative man is lead, directed and controlled by boredom. Avoiding boredom is one of our most important purposes."  — Saul Steinberg 

"Never underestimate the determination of a kid who is time-rich and cash-poor."  — Cory Doctorow

"When people are bored, it is primarily with their own selves that they are bored."  — Eric Hoffer 

“Boredom: the desire for desires.”  – Leo Tolstoy

"If you get bored with the person you married for love, there's something wrong with you - not with that person."  — Shahrukh Khan 

"Is not life a hundred times too short for us to bore ourselves?"  — Friedrich Nietzsche

"Doing anything when you're bored is very very boring. Anyway, doing nothing is the point of being bored. The pleasure of being bored is mooning about and doing nothing."  — Aidan Chambers 

"My despair is less despair than boredom and loneliness."  — Anthony Swofford