Are you bored?
A case for the merits of boredom
Do you know what I think is one of my biggest faults?
I’m really bad at being bored.
Horrible.
Can’t sit still for more than five minutes without something to do.
Here’s why I’m trying to change that, and a little bit of how.
The Case for Boredom
Have you ever thought about at which times in life you get the most “Aha”-moments? Those insights that just makes something fall into place.
I have.
Here’s a list:
- In the shower.
- When taking a walk.
- When trying to sleep but my body says no.
- When in the countryside.
- In a plane.
These are by far the times when I most frequently get good ideas in my life.
What do they all have in common?
What all of these activities share is that they are all low-intensity activities. Which is to say that I was not very stimulated. Which is why my mind started wandering to other places. Which is why I got new exciting ideas.
If you want exciting ideas you have to do things that aren’t very exciting.
The Facts
Now, you might be wondering why this is?
Let us at least scratch the surface of it all together.
Let us start with this great quote from The Art of Creativity
The unconscious mind is far more suited to creative insight than the conscious mind. Ideas are free to recombine with other ideas in novel patterns and unpredictable associations. It is also the storehouse of everything you know, including things you can’t readily call into awareness. Further, the unconscious speaks to us in ways that go beyond words, including the rich feelings and deep imagery of the senses
This is an amazing statement because it captures a lot of the intuition behind why creative sparks are much more likely to ignite when we slow things down and dare to just chill out. Perhaps even be bored.
The problem is that at least to me it’s still a bit vague, what do they actually mean by the conscious and unconscious mind?
For those of us that want to go one level deeper and understand why it works like this, let me present our knight in shining armor, neuroscience.
On my travels throughout the internet, I found this excellent article which seems to align very well with the concepts above. Look at the similarity of this quote with the one we have above.
Their review suggests that when you want to loosen your associations, allow your mind to roam free, imagine new possibilities, and silence the inner critic, it’s good to reduce activation of the Executive Attention Network (a bit, but not completely) and increase activation of the Imagination and Salience Networks.
The article states that there are three large-scale networks (which is sort of like big parts of the brain that work together) that have to be understood to see how creativity really works in the brain.
- The Executive Attention Network
- The Imagination Network
- The Salience Network
For those of you who want the juicy details about these networks please read the article. It’s very well-written.
For the rest of you. Let me give you a brief.
The Executive network = Conscious mind.
The Salience + Imagination Network = Unconscious mind.
So what can I do?
Especially the neuroscience article clearly states that you should consciously decide what you want to do for the moment.
If you want to evaluate an idea, you should focus on it and use your conscious mind.
If you, on the other hand, want to come up with new connections and creative ideas, you need to “let your mind roam free”, e.g. let your unconscious mind do the work.
So, the moments when you decide that you have to prioritize creativity before evaluation the most productive thing you can do is something with a very low intensity that makes your mind roam.
Go out for a long walk without headphones.
Chill out in the sofa (no TV).
Meditate.
Or anything else that feels meditative for you, perhaps playing an instrument or drawing.
It’s okay if it feels a bit boring. That’s good.
Hope you learned something.
Regards,
Adam.
