Roger over at Contains Moderate Peril wrote a nice piece on boredom and what it means to him. I’ve had some time to ponder and developed some of my own thoughts on the topic. As per usual I am sharing those ideas here out of a desire to break up my day and relieve some boredom… actually, that isn’t quite true as I don’t feel bored at the moment. In fact, my back is killing me and I am struggling to find a comfortable way to sit as I write this which is sort of the opposite of being bored.
What boredom is not
Boredom isn’t having a lack of things to do. It might be having a lack of things to do that challenge or intrigue the mind. I suppose this is why boredom is sometimes perceived as a malady that afflicts smarter people more-so than it does the less intellectually inclined. If your mind is simple, this train of thought goes, you can fill your day with simpler tasks and find them fulfilling. But of course that sounds extremely judgemental and ascribes to boredom features of a virtue that it really doesn’t deserve.
This is also the reverse of one of the statements Roger said he grew up with namely “an intelligent mind is never bored”. I find this statement hard to credit. Every smart person I’ve ever known seems to struggle more with boredom than the more average people who populate the planet. I think this is because it takes more to challenge the intelligent mind and relieve the tedium.
Boredom also is not necessarily having only simple tasks to do. Even the most complicated mind can find relief from boredom in particular types of basic tasks if they meet certain criteria. What seems to matter is a unique quality that those tasks possess for the person performing them, something that extends beyond their challenge or lack thereof.
What boredom might be
Boredom might be experiencing a lack of fulfilling activities. The definition of “fulfilling” has nothing to do with the intellectual or physical qualities of the task, and everything to do with what is going on in the mind of the person facing boredom. What kinds of tasks bring them satisfaction? My hypothesis is that there are three different categories of activity that can relieve boredom and that each person can respond positively or negatively to one or more of these.
- Risk seeking: Some people find relief from boredom only comes when they push beyond their existing boundaries. These are the people that climb mountains, bungee jump, or sky dive. There has to be a risk of failure that has serious consequences or else it is is not up to their standards. I don’t really have much experience with this sort of boredom relief, and I suspect this type of risk-seeking behaviour is almost totally outside my normal domain of interest.
- Complex problem solving: For some people, doing a task that solves a complex problem is fulfilling. This could be repairing a plumbing issue or debugging some recalcitrant computer software. Something that can be broken down into parts and resolved through concerted effort over time is where these people find their relief from the every-day. I can definitely find my place within this domain of behaviour when it comes to technology problems. I may complain and get frustrated, but the process of solving a difficult problem is the opposite of boredom for me.
- Creating: For others relief from boredom comes from an effort that creates something that didn’t exist before. It could be a painting, a blog post, or a crop of vegetables in a garden: these people take satisfaction from what is created and get relief from boredom in the activities that get them to that point. They can visualize the end state and all the little niggling tasks, otherwise boring on their own, become enjoyable in that greater context. I have an aspect of myself that falls into this category of boredom relief: I don’t grow vegetables, but I do write blog posts and, in times past, I repaired antique clocks. The actual activity of writing and repairing isn’t in itself a relief from boredom so much as it is the satisfaction of what I create that has that affect.
One major path to relief from boredom that I don’t know how to express relates to simply distracting oneself through entertainment. Reading a book, watching a movie, going to a play all fall into this category but I don’t see a good way to include it in my nice, neat list of three activity types.
Conclusion
The short answer to the original question this post posed- Am I bored? No, I am not bored- not as a general state of being at least. There are aspects of my day that are boring and I sometimes get frustrated that I can’t set those times aside to focus on things that interest me more. But I recognize those things as a healthy part of my normal day.
Looking at my own life, I get bored by things that I do every day that never seem to change. Making coffee each morning, feeding the cats, taking my medicines, brushing my teeth: boring, boring, boring. But if I spend a few hours lost in thought over a complex technical problem or writing a blog post like this one I am invigorated. The uplifted feeling sadly doesn’t last very long: boredom comes back quickly and I can’t chisel out long blocks of time for writing (as an example) whenever I want to.
I’m retired so I can take the opportunity to pursue those more enjoyable tasks more frequently, just not all the time. I still have to do the boring stuff in order to keep doing the non-boring stuff. That is how life works, and building up healthy coping mechanisms for the boring but necessary parts of life is something we all have to become good at.
The header image for this post was AI generated using ChatGPT. Risk seeking apparently includes motorcycle riding and playing new games… ChatGPT is weird sometimes
I think neurologically speaking “boredom” is simply the lack of feedback stimulus. We are big mushy neural networks after all, and creating new pathways required reinforcement stimulus.
That isn’t always good stimulus. PTSD is the poster child of bad, bud strong, stimulus encoding pathways that we would rather not have done.
The first time you do or experience something it is novel, we get feed back stimulus. Maybe ” I feel nauseated, I didn’t enjoy that ride” or perhaps, “my book shelf looks really nice sorted by colour.”. The thousandth time you have done something, there is no such feedback, usually. We have already learned how to comb our hair, butter our toast, or vacuum the rug.
In that light boredom is our brain telling us it is ready to accept new knowledge and experiences, to keep learning. There is no virtue involved in the basic feeling of boredom, though there maybe in how we react to that feeling.
How do people continue to do simple tasks without crippling boredom? I don’t buy the simple minds argument. People either do something else at the same time ( I used to write poetry in my head while working in the dish room) or they find ways to incrementaly improve on the task.
Conversely, I sometimes think that “smart” people suffer from boredom more because they are more picky about the skills they are willing to learn, or the experiences they are willing to try. I put myself in that category, though I have improved over the years.
Finally, I think the only time boredom truly becomes a problem, is when we are prevented from trying or learning something new. When you have to do the same task, and do it the same way. When society tells us there is only one right way to think and experience the world. When conformity, and uniformity are enforced for socioeconomic and political reasons. Overly restrictive dress codes, oppressive HOA enforcement of “architectural guidelines” would be examples along with lack of work flexibility or real opportunities for growth.
I’m not convinced any mundane task is boring per se. It’s all about perception. If you engage with what you’re doing, anything can be interesting. I generally enjoy the physical sensation of brushing my teeth, for example. I like seeing what the toothpaste looks like when it comes out of the tube and I often read the writing on the tube, too, even though I’ve seen it before many times. It’s not like I can remember it. I find making coffee sufficiently interesting that I need to pay attention when I’m doing it or it won’t go very well, even though I make it about half a dozen times every day. I need to watch how much milk I’m pouring and I always get a little mild thrill of pleasure from the heft of the fridge door when I close it as I put the milk back. Feeding pets is an absolute pleasure, of course. I feed Beryl by hand several times a day and it’s one of the best parts of the day.
I think the saying Roger alludes to about intelligent minds not getting bored relates to being able to see the interest in whatever it is you happen to be doing. It’s always there, although certain repetitive activities do tend to send me to sleep rather than make me appreciate them. There’s also plenty of evidence that boredom, when it does occur, is good for creativity and general mental well-being. It’s considered better than filling your time with activity intended to block boredom, especially in children. Boredom makes you think.
That said, I detest being bored, which for me happens almost exclusively when I’m compelled by some outside factor like paid employment to have to complete some task I haven’t chosen (Data entry is the worst example in my experience.) Outside of situations like that, I very rarely get bored. I probably could use a bit of boredom just to come up with some new ideas.