The Importance of Boredom
Don’t run from boredom; indulge in it without overstaying your welcome. Succumbing to the grip of nothingness is the bodies’ way of telling you to call your internal home. Use this time to ponder the mundane, frightening and the shameful. You’re not alone if you’re on your phone. This only welcomes an invisible following to impose on your solitude. Alone time on social media is being aware you have an audience in your subconscious. The expectation to be reachable across various platforms 24/7 is relatively new. Believe it or not, people survived, got on with their lives and found a way to carry on without a visual reference of your avocado and toast.
Boredom allows you to unpack the day; it’s the thoughts we neglect during the day, which keep us awake at night. Remember what it’s like to do nothing. The brain is a muscle; sooner or later it shows you what it’s made of.
In times of breaking news stories, comments flood our timelines about how the issue everyone is talking about, is a distraction from a ‘real’ crisis. Others laugh at how gullible we can be towards obvious ‘marketing stunts’ and taunt us for being naive. As we grow more distrusting of media outlets, and become savvy to the ways it tries to distract us. We’ve become an audience who questions the validity of what we see. There are a lot of cliché inspirational quotes about the importance of being present. But there is little discussion on the ways we distract ourselves from ourselves. The Internet isn’t only to blame for the time we give to the external. It’s handed us more accessible and pocket size ways to do so. Before the Internet we distracted ourselves with a newspaper, crossword, or made calls to pass time. We can argue our earlier forms of distraction are less damaging to our self-esteem. But whether new or old, it’s ourselves we’re trying to avoid.
I’m unplugged from a lot of mainstream content. Not in the ‘I’m so underground-niche-and-alternative’ way, but for my sanity. This is a choice I’ve made as an act of self-preservation. My media diet is as important as what I eat and drink. McDonalds may be okay to eat sometimes, when nothing else is open, and you don’t have food at home and its 3am. But it’s not a habit I want to form because it’s bad for me. I noticed the same pattern with what my eyes consume.
The more I’m given implicit signs about what’s cool, popular, trendy, beautiful, or interesting the harder it becomes for me to find my authentic voice. This makes difficult to know if I like something, or if I’ve fallen victim through marketing to find it more intriguing. Streamlining my visual content allowed much more space for yesteryears past-time, boredom. In these moments of idleness I began to realize how much of my time had been dedicated to everything but myself. For the first time in too long, my mind had the freedom to wonder.
It’s been years since I have had a regular show to watch. I’ve stopped investigating new music on popular blogs. I’ve stopped using as much time on someone else’s time. I’ve grown in ways that were unimaginable. I attribute this to giving myself time for boredom.
This account in no way, suggests I’ve made it and achieved ultimate Zen and peace of mind. That’s wishful thinking; I have depression days, depression naps, and intense bouts of procrastination with a side of perpetual guilt. I can feel isolated, classically misunderstood and constant overwhelming sensations. Boredom has only created the space for me to not be afraid of these feelings. It has built the courage to dare to ask what these feelings are trying to teach me. Solitude is boredom to those who’ve yet to discover the wisdom of silence. I’ve granted myself the space to seduce my curiosity and follow wherever it leads. I’m not as interested in what is happening but have the time to consider why it’s happening.
Its in moments of boredom the mind roams free. It’s in this time we could decide to relax by sitting in front of a canvas with a palette of watercolours. Someone else might feel compelled to finish writing a song. Or even relearn to sit in silence. If we stopped filling our spare time, all the time, we’ll start answering some of our lives bigger questions. Our internal monologue goes something like, ‘What is it that I really want?’ ‘Do I actually like him, or am I lonely?’ ‘I wonder what she really meant when she said that?’ Getting to the root of those questions is easier without distraction. We’ve convinced ourselves that this is over thinking, as opposed to critical thinking. A life without asking these questions, leads to operating on autopilot. Examination of our feelings, allows us to get to the root of them.
The shower is another place where people admit to having some of their best thoughts. The 5–20mins we give ourselves in the shower is the only time most are without distraction and only because water and electricity is a deadly mix. Interesting thoughts have the space to roam because the shower is a forced solitude. It’s one of the only common spaces used where reading, scrolling, and watching are off limits.
To meet ourselves in entirety we should consider rethinking of boredom as solitude. We could remember being busy isn’t the human condition but a worldly necessity. Busyness is something we do but not always something we need.
Being busy softens anxieties about bills, rent and the general expense of existence. Being busy makes us feel accomplished. But our inner lives suffer as a result, as we leave ourselves less time to debrief. It’s no wonder generalised anxiety is a by product of our contemporary lives. One of capitalisms most damaging side affects, is the guilt induced by relaxation. If we’re not busy or thinking of ways to make money, or contributing to our legacy, we’re convinced we are lazy. Between emails, Facebook messages. Instagram comments. Twitter DMs. unopened WhatsApp messages. LinkedIn requests. Phone calls. Texts. News alerts, and growing life admin. Who has time to ever actually know how they feel? It’s easier to get lost instead in one of the apps mentioned instead. Its time to remember that your free time doesn’t have to be a reflection of your availability.
Utter boredom is crucial.
Ayishat A. Akanbi
