Boredom

What do you do with boredom? Nowadays, there’s effectively infinitely many stimuli to “treat” boredom. But it feels like we incorrectly view it like an impulse that needs to be quenched.

For most of human history, there was nothing to do with boredom. Once water was acquired, food was gathered, and safe shelter was found, our ancestors had to just… exist. But this boredom bred creativity, and creativity fostered art, innovation, philosophy, and more. All of the progress humans have made as a species in ascending beyond primal monkeys is due to boredom.

Boredom is a catalyst, not a condition. We shouldn’t treat it. We should sit with it. Just sit with it. The issue is that so much of the modern economy is centered around manufacturing medicines for this supposed disease of boredom (aka “entertainment”). Social media, TV, video games, movies, etc., all multi-billion dollar industries that seek to extract every bit of spare attention that you have to offer. We’re selling the cure for a fake problem. Even worse, the alleged problem is actually a good thing.

Allowing myself to be bored has led to a number of substsantial benefits, the most important being new ideas. Turns out a lot of problems in life have fairly simple solutions if we just sit and think about them for a bit.

Much of human innovation arose from boredom; for example, we discovered how to start and control fires by accident. Most likely a few of our ancestors had nothing better to do and started striking sticks or stones against each other until they saw a spark. Imagine they just turned on the TV or checked their Instagram instead. What are you missing out on when you decide to do the same?