the joy in boredom | February Bearblog Carnival
Boredom. Dread it, run from it, boredom arrives all the same. I've learned to stop trying to avoid boredom and instead opt to embrace it when it inevitably comes.
This is my response to this month's carnival hosted by Winther.
Boredom, to me, is when creativity fully gets to shine. Most of my ideas come from when I'm bored out of my skull. When we are stimulated, there is nothing to allow our minds to wander.
You might have heard the song "Fixing a Hole" by The Beatles:
I'm fixing a hole, where the rain gets in, and stops my mind from wandering
The premise of the lyric is that the narrator is stopping a thing that prevents his mind from being able to move freely.
We meditate and get frustrated when our minds inevitably start to wander about. We fill every waking moment of our lives with stimulus, social media, music, so on and so forth. However, I think mindful boredom, where you just raw dog your environment can be helpful in getting our brains to think of something. Inspiration doesn't come when you are blasting your inner monologue with The Hamster Dance (Extended).
Humans are at their most thoughtful when they're bored because our brains don't really like being quiet, so it does something to fill that void or find a "cure" for it's own boredom. Think of every lyric to a song, or invention. It was most likely because some dude was bored and thought "what if...?"
What I've found interesting is how I get out of boredom. Since getting rid of using a smartphone, my exit from boredom is less reflexive (i.e. instinctively pulling out the phone to scroll something) and more of a "I'm bored, I want to go do X" and then getting up and going to do it.
Having ADHD, my brain kinda fills the quiet with a general traffic jam of thoughts. Sometimes it's fun sometimes it's distressing. CBT helps when the dark thoughts start coming up; I like to visualize turning that thought into a pebble and slingshotting (Slingshotting? Slingshooting? Slingshote?) it into the ocean.
In times of boredom, I get inspired to do something creative or engage with a hobby. Writing a guitar riff that came into my head, testing an idea for a game I'm developing, making some digital art, etc. As much as I love music, it is nice to sometimes turn it off and let my brain go wherever.
So, don't fear the boredom, embrace it. You never know what your brain will come up with.
Reply via email: me@absurdpirate.com
as of writing this...
I'm sitting in my office, procrastinating on taking a shower and eating. Got bored and then remembered this months carnival prompt. Will probably play Payday 2 or Ocarina of Time later.