Action and danger excite; people crave them. Even anxiety, sadness or depressed feelings make people feel something. But, what about boredom? Why do we get bored?
The word boring derives from a process that bores the barrel of a gun. It is a slow and repetitive process that leads to continuous amounts of … repetitiveness. It is a temporary disinterest in events happening around one to which no reaction can be brought upon. Boredom is a feeling we don’t like, it’s uncomfortable, but it’s trivial right? I mean, boredom happens to all of us, but now we have Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, texting and Candy Crush to keep occupied.
Here’s the thing, physical pain, heartbreak and nausea are also uncomfortable, but they are caused by dangerous, serious, toxic things, whereas boredom occurs when one is merely disinterested in the outside world and the inner world of one’s own thoughts.
So does the existence of boredom mean that when it really comes down to it, existing isn’t really enough? Is something wrong with being or is something awesome about us? Nearly 200 years ago, Jecoma Leo wrote in a letter to his father that “boredom is the most sublime of all human emotions because it expresses the fact of the human spirit in a certain sense is greater than the entire universe.”
While superficially boredom might seem trivial, childish, embarrassing, almost rude to admit to, one thing’s for sure: boredom isn’t boring. When bored, brain activity drops about five percent and magnetic resonance images of people’s brains, while they are bored, actually showed greater activity in regions responsible for recalling autobiographical memory. In an imposed state people often think about themselves and notice things they may have overlooked.
It may urge one to get productive: paint the next Mona Lisa or compose the next great symphony or write the next Harry Potter. A state of boredom is a sign of a healthy mind. People who felt it wound up doing more, flourished more, which led to startling achievements.
Be proud to be bored. Think of it as participating in a life-improving motivation, like hunger or thirst, that pushes one towards new and better things. Relish time away from the usual distractions.