The trouble with boredom is that it is accompanied by inertia and a disinclination to do anything to resolve it. Boredom demands something happen but it also puts us in the frame of mind that we couldn’t be bothered. The effort of making an effort is its greatest ally.
We all suffer from it at some time or another. We can be bored when we are busy and also when we're idle because boredom is a state of mind. If we become bored when we are busy it’s usually because we are sick of the monotony and repetition of a task. Conversely when we are bored because we are idle it is because we need something to do that really interests us. I have looked up the definition of “boredom” and it states that it’s “a lack of interest”.
Apart from humans some animals can also become bored but it is generally because they are contained in restricted environments. House bound dogs need a walk to channel their energy and zoo animals need large habitats similar to their natural environments to fend off boredom.
This makes me wonder why humans, when they are unconstrained by external factors, become bored. Is it something in their psychology that is a side effect of intellect? Is boredom a motivating force? If fear is the motivating force for survival, what it the point of boredom? Is it also a survival mechanism of some kind?
Instead of getting too analytical about this let’s look at what happens in childhood when you tell an adult you are bored. The result will be (and I know from experience): -
You’ve got plenty of toys, how can you possibly be bored?
Tidy your room and there’s plenty more I can give you to do when you’ve finished.
Have you done your homework?
If, on the other hand, you sit quietly pondering the immensity of the universe, they get suspicious. My mother couldn’t stand seeing her five year old idle before school and would say:-
“Plump the cushions” or, worse, “Get the dustpan and broom and clean out the ash from the fireplace.”
Now cushion-plumping is not high on my list of priorities nor will it cause earth shattering repercussions if it is not done. The long term effect of being made to feel that idleness was not a virtue carried over into my adulthood and caused me to feel guilty whenever I felt like doing nothing. I’m sure I’m not alone in this or in having parents who encouraged activity. There’s a lot to be said for channeling a child into productive enterprise, however, a parent should also remember to balance this with letting a child have quiet time.
The ability to enjoy doing nothing is an underrated pleasure and should not be denigrated. Boredom will always drive us on in the end but so many of us suffer guilt because we are found sitting, doing nothing and just enjoying being alive.
Sometimes don’t you just want to stay in bed a whole day without having the ‘flu and be brought food and drinks? What a treat especially in winter. When I’m home, however, I always feel that I must achieve something and I resent this.
In my house cobwebs trail delicately from corners, the surface of kitchen cupboards are a bit grimy when I look closely but I’m fortunate to be shortsighted, which saves me from being too critical of myself. Dust calmly builds up on wooden surfaces and I don’t see it. I ignore floors until even my myopic vision notices the dirt.
I attend to the basics of course, it’s just that I’m not a fanatical housekeeper. Sometimes I would love to spend all day reading a book or writing but that little voice from long ago is ingrained into my subconscious. What makes us need to do or achieve something to see ourselves as worthy?
If you are bored not a single activity is appealing unless it is new, exciting, expensive or adventurous. Holiday brochures display people enjoying guilt-free idleness. Is it the exotic surroundings that make it leisure as opposed to indolence? Do you need to be far from your everyday place and chores to be able to enjoy doing nothing? It’s not surprising that the words ‘idle’ and ‘idyllic’ have the same prefix. Do you have to physically pay money to assuage your guilt for doing nothing?
People who retire from work and who have no hobby are often ill-prepared for a life of leisure. Some return to part-time work or do volunteer work to stop falling into depressive boredom. People who worked and also had hobbies fare better. My own father just managed to complete a pet project in time before he passed away at 78 years of age. I don’t believe he was bored a single day in his life. My mother had the beginnings of dementia at the time and spent the next six years before she died, bored and depressed as she became unable to read, her greatest passion, or to even cook.
When I feel bored I try to think of the fact that I am healthy and able. Boredom is a self-centred beast and doesn’t care about such mundaneness of course. So I give myself a good kick in the rear and force myself to attend to a task I generally hate such as filing. Why, after all, waste a good mood on filing or some other vile activity? If I succeed in motivating myself, I feel quite saintly afterwards and have also managed to achieve something.
I suggest being productive in a menial way to overcome boredom. Make the self-centered beast suffer. Clean the oven; clear out your pantry of things that have passed their use-by date; dead head the flowers on the garden shrubbery. Very soon boredom will shut up and skulk away to the dark and dingy cupboard where it belongs.
Some people go to extremes to alleviate boredom. I believe adventure sports were designed for easily bored people. If they can get over their inertia they can go bungee jumping, sky diving or scuba diving in caves. Nothing puts the thrill back into life like the fear of losing it.
The late author Grahame Greene says in his autobiography that he twice played Russian roulette in his youth to assuage his boredom. He survived this folly to go on and be an author. It’s a bit extreme for my tastes. I’d rather survive to be bored another day and face the challenge it provides.
These trying times of Covid-19 have brought boredom to the fore but no matter how much it affects us we all still want to survive and go on even if we remain bored out of our minds. Eventually, of course, we’ll find something to do because boredom won’t tolerate our idleness for long.
The End.
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