Boredom is the most dreaded word for most of the people. People want to avoid it at any cost and one of the chief pursuits of mankind is to get around boredom in life. To a great extent, many wars and pogroms were planned to escape from boredom. Perhaps the entire leisure industry owes it to the aversion of mankind for boredom. If we consider excitement as the opposite of boredom, the question is, is a life of continuous excitement possible or sustainable? Can human beings keep amusing themselves without end without exhausting themselves? This is a tricky situation. The answer is that it’s an impossible task and a certain amount of boredom is unavoidable and necessary in life. Here I feel that we can find an interesting parallel with unhappiness. Not the perpetual unhappiness out of extreme tragedy. But the periodic unhappiness from which none of us have escaped. Neuroscientists have an interesting take on this. We perceive many things not by their absolute value but by their contrast to what came before. In other words, it’s not just that variety is the spice of life; it’s variance that lets us sense things. Extending this argument further Neuro Scientist Indira Raman says that “the brain grades on a curve, endlessly comparing the present with what came just before, the secret to happiness may be unhappiness. Not unmitigated unhappiness, of course, but the transient chill that lets us feel the warmth, the sensation of hunger that makes satiety so welcome,…..She calls unhappiness as a brief palate cleanser. What is applicable to unhappiness is applicable to boredom too. Without spells of boredom, we will never know what excitement is all about.
Though Russell put Boredom and Excitement under causes of unhappiness in his book “ The conquest of happiness “ he presents it in such a way that Boredom is an unavoidable aspect of every human life. ” According to Russel,
“too much excitement not only undermines the health, but dulls the palate for every kind of pleasure, substituting titillations for profound organic satisfactions, cleverness for wisdom, and jagged surprises for beauty…”.
We must also understand that for every creative pursuit an ability to be alone, without doing anything may be necessary. If we observe closely, we will understand that children constantly seek excitement. In our homes, it may be difficult to find our children sitting quietly without doing anything. We need to give them activities endless. Added to that we have all our entertainment channels on a 24 X7 basis. There is never a moment people can switch off. We have almost come to a stage that doing nothing for a while is a sin in itself. Children who are constantly after excitement never realize that once they grow up they have to get used to a life of periodic boredom in work as well as in life. Hence it will be worthwhile to teach them to get used to small doses of boredom in childhood itself. Here is legendary filmmaker Tarkovsky’s call for everyone to learn to sit with themselves. Every person needs to learn from childhood how to spend time with himself. That doesn’t mean he should be lonely, but that he shouldn’t grow bored with himself — because people who grow bored in their own company seem to be in danger……………”
In fact, while writing these thoughts on boredom, I have come across an interesting piece of writing about a book on boredom.” The upside of downtime: Why boredom is good “ written by Sandi Mann. The essay provided quite a few interesting insights. According to the author who investigated the phenomenon of boredom, thoroughly there is an intimate link between boredom and creativity. The idea is that boredom makes people keen to engage in activities that they find more meaning than those at hand. After many experiments, the author concludes that people who are bored think more creatively than those who are not. Elaborating further she tells that when we are bored our minds search for something to stimulate us and that trigger creativity. Minds wander positively. Something like a positive daydreaming. To sum up one can say, boredom is an incubator lab for brilliance.
“ It’s the messy, uncomfortable, confusing, frustrating place one has to occupy for a while before coming up with the winning equation”
So next time when you feel bored, don’t get upset. It only shows that you are fully human and relish it. Let us also remember that positive and constructive daydreaming /boredom is vital for all acts of creativity. How intelligently and constructively we handle our boredom is the question.
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