To the Bored All Things Are Boring

I think boredom is basically the result of a mismatch between small and big concepts of identity. By that I mean the feeling of being bored arises when the following conditions are true:

1. You don’t enjoy the thing you’re doing for itself, intrinsically

2. You can’t see how doing this thing now adds up to a greater purpose and long-term goal. This lack of a path leads to a loss of interest in the particular moment.

For #1, I really like what Japanese thought has to say about this. More specifically, Zen Buddhist-adjacent ideas like wabi sabi and the haiku poetry form. [1] They really help you center yourself on the moment and appreciate the impermanence of existence, which gets rid of that “wasted time” feeling.

#2 is more tricky and this problem is more endemic to modernity as a whole. I’m not sure what the solution is, other than to make long-term life plans and consistently fight off all of the cultural pressure to discard them and YOLO instead.

1. I wrote about wabi sabi and haiku on my (somewhat inactive) Substack last year, which you might find interesting:

https://onthearts.com/p/how-to-write-a-proper-haiku

https://onthearts.com/p/what-does-wabi-sabi-really-mean

Boredom signals we've lost our curiosity - we're either too serious or stuck exploiting the familiar. Cultivating "engaged curiosity" is the key. It's a self-reinforcing cycle: the more we explore and play with open attention, the more meaning we create.

This curiosity flywheel builds momentum through our actions. Nobody else can spark it for us; we must actively nurture it. The trick is keeping our attention open to catch novel sparks from the world, rather than retreating to the safe and known.

I'm reading this article because I'm bored. And I'm commenting this midway into the article because I got bored again. I guess the author really did get his point across.

Overstimulation is something that definitely contributes to boredom. Life isn't always exciting, it's no action movie. Everything would pale in comparison to the most interesting thing done.

I found in my day to day life, everything is getting boring. Work cannot hold a candle to how interesting games or movies are. It's almost become a depression, is the rest of my life going to be THIS boring?

Personally I chase being in a bored state.

Adult life with all the duties is exhausting and drains mental/physical energy every day, to the point that nothing _meaningful_ can be achieved really. No, usually work is pointless exchange of time/energy vs money in order to live comfortably, sometimes sugarcoated in a higher "mission/vision".

Being in a stressed state also favors a mindset of "getting it done" with the actual goal of getting rid of the task at hand, aka "productivity", and some people think that a series of these completitions are a trajectory towards something rewarding - for me it isn't.

But when there are these moments where duties (work, kids, household, ...) are actually done, when there is no desire to play/watch the latest thing right now, this is when the good kind of boredom kicks in for me:

aimless reflection. mentally consolidating myself into the world, where am I, where things are going to, where I want to be next, how to probably get there. Going through it feels very relaxing, and activates some very existential kind of creativity (not the "solve the problem smarter thing), and fuels my energy a lot more than anything else in life. Being in this bored state is a precursor of feeling control over life again, and adjusting the inner compass to get updated directions to follow.

... but this doesn't happen when being busy/distracted, a state that drains my energy, and even accumulates dread every single day until the stressors are gone again and I feel "bored".

Sometimes I feel extremely bored, I have a huge list of things that has to be done, and that I want and live to do, but I just can't do them.

It's probably linked to my ADHD, it's one of the most frustrating states I can find myself in.

The state of boredom is due to a lack of focus, goals, and having too many options.

Also, bored people are typically boring people.

Remove all social media, stop reading the news, get on top of your finances, keep a small but significantly valued group of friends, have a vision for your life, and have honbies and side projects, and failing all that - get off your ass and go for a walk. If you’re disabled that last part makes things tricky though unfortunately for some.

I’m never bored, there’s too many rabbit holes and too much work to do

I like this article, and got really interested when the author says that “neither avoiding or resigning to boredom is the answer.”

I was curious to see the non-obvious, eye-opening solution.

But the solution is a reworded “resign yourself to boredom.”

I still appreciate this conclusion, and it’s the one I expected from the article’s opener, but I’m not sure how else to describe fixing this.

Expect to be bored. It’s a superpower if you can embrace it. Definitely not healthy to flit from one exciting but fleeting activity to the next.

This reminds me of a saying ... For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

I read here on HN some time ago that boredom is actually a good thing. And when we are bored we get new ideas. Otherwise we find ways to keep ourselves busy and entertained throughout by any means. Not letting ourselves bored means not letting ourselves get creative.

If I ever get bored, it's only in situations where I can't easily leave to do what I want. For example, in meetings or while waiting for transportation. Otherwise, I always know something interesting to do.

One of the best pieces of advice/criticism I was told in elementary school, "Only boring people get bored."

Reminds me of the old EU commercial "BORED WITH BORING BOARD GAMES??"

My saying has always been "Bored people are boring people."