Katherine, I am blessed to have grown up in an era where there was no internet, I remember when we got our first 19-inch color TV, I remember when TV was limited to a few hours in the evening and news. I am grateful for "boredom" Boredom for me is just thinking time. three or four days ago a thought entered my bored mind "Everything is just a vibration". Today that thought turned into a short talk I dictated to grok. (Yes, I used it as an editor, I am not rich) I then turned it into an essay here on Substack I just published. Boredom is the incubator of creativity. I will not link it in this comment because I don't want to a comment spammer :) people can find it for themselves
I love the idea of being intentional about creating boredom - or maybe we could call it a free mind. I'm building it into my day by not listening to anything on my 20 minute morning walk and letting my mind wander. I also always used to listen to podcasts while I was cooking dinner seeing it as a good use of my time. I no longer do - more free time for my mind.
But although more and more people rightly saying we need to be bored again, the real frontier is navigating that.
Boredom used to be incidental - now it has to be intentional. And based on five months of experience of doing it daily (in my case, on my commute) I've convinced that there are techniques we can usefully use to deal with the silence, and make it feel like it's positive training rather than gritted teeth punishment.
I've found success with observing the mind's call to the phone. So from the moment I put it down I expect my mind to come up with a reason to use it again - which it does very reliably. That metacognition / mindfulness is very helpful - it helps distance "me" from the impulse to pick up the phone. And I'm training myself to hear the voice clearly, which has reduced automatic pickups at other times.
It's really useful priming to say "okay mind, what brilliant reasons are you going to invent to pick up the phone now" - it's actually quite entertaining if I'm honest.
Beyond that, making a daily appointment really helps. I use my (train) commute, a form of habit stacking. Everyone around me is doing the polar opposite :-)
An important message! Makes me think of philosopher Josef Pieper's famous book "Leisure: The Basis of Culture," in which he restates a point even the ancients knew: that a productive and happy life, as well as a creative culture, actually require reasonably generous amounts of unscheduled, unhurried, unplugged downtime. Of course this is very countercultural in our day of hectic 24/7 work, motion, connectivity and continuous dopamine hits. Though Pieper's work is to me an uplifting book, it also carries this warning: "Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for non-activity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture -- and ourselves."
The problem is that while we actually have more leisurely time, we have many more distractions to fill it with—and yes, as you mention, lots of continuous dopamine hits. This also made it so that we look for even more dopamine hits and eventually feel a dissatisfaction with even the ones we are getting. I really think there needs to a significant overhaul. It's much harder with adults, but with kids, at least we have them in a controlled environment quite a few hours per day...and perhaps they can build better habits. I also suggest faraday cages for schools.
And as I know from personal experience, super-hectic days and an over-stimulated mind aren't exactly conducive to getting to sleep easily and resting well.
Katherine, I am blessed to have grown up in an era where there was no internet, I remember when we got our first 19-inch color TV, I remember when TV was limited to a few hours in the evening and news. I am grateful for "boredom" Boredom for me is just thinking time. three or four days ago a thought entered my bored mind "Everything is just a vibration". Today that thought turned into a short talk I dictated to grok. (Yes, I used it as an editor, I am not rich) I then turned it into an essay here on Substack I just published. Boredom is the incubator of creativity. I will not link it in this comment because I don't want to a comment spammer :) people can find it for themselves
I love the idea of being intentional about creating boredom - or maybe we could call it a free mind. I'm building it into my day by not listening to anything on my 20 minute morning walk and letting my mind wander. I also always used to listen to podcasts while I was cooking dinner seeing it as a good use of my time. I no longer do - more free time for my mind.
I couldn't agree more with this.
But although more and more people rightly saying we need to be bored again, the real frontier is navigating that.
Boredom used to be incidental - now it has to be intentional. And based on five months of experience of doing it daily (in my case, on my commute) I've convinced that there are techniques we can usefully use to deal with the silence, and make it feel like it's positive training rather than gritted teeth punishment.
I'm working on a piece on just that...how we can be intentional about it. Do you have any techniques you use? I've got some and am researching more.
Really looking forward to it!
I've found success with observing the mind's call to the phone. So from the moment I put it down I expect my mind to come up with a reason to use it again - which it does very reliably. That metacognition / mindfulness is very helpful - it helps distance "me" from the impulse to pick up the phone. And I'm training myself to hear the voice clearly, which has reduced automatic pickups at other times.
It's really useful priming to say "okay mind, what brilliant reasons are you going to invent to pick up the phone now" - it's actually quite entertaining if I'm honest.
Beyond that, making a daily appointment really helps. I use my (train) commute, a form of habit stacking. Everyone around me is doing the polar opposite :-)
An important message! Makes me think of philosopher Josef Pieper's famous book "Leisure: The Basis of Culture," in which he restates a point even the ancients knew: that a productive and happy life, as well as a creative culture, actually require reasonably generous amounts of unscheduled, unhurried, unplugged downtime. Of course this is very countercultural in our day of hectic 24/7 work, motion, connectivity and continuous dopamine hits. Though Pieper's work is to me an uplifting book, it also carries this warning: "Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for non-activity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture -- and ourselves."
The problem is that while we actually have more leisurely time, we have many more distractions to fill it with—and yes, as you mention, lots of continuous dopamine hits. This also made it so that we look for even more dopamine hits and eventually feel a dissatisfaction with even the ones we are getting. I really think there needs to a significant overhaul. It's much harder with adults, but with kids, at least we have them in a controlled environment quite a few hours per day...and perhaps they can build better habits. I also suggest faraday cages for schools.
And as I know from personal experience, super-hectic days and an over-stimulated mind aren't exactly conducive to getting to sleep easily and resting well.