Boredom: the Greatest Gift
By Mariel Wiley
Photograph by Clawdia Marin
When I was in sixth grade, I rode the bus to school every morning just before sunrise. There was an unpredictability about its route -- sometimes it would stop at the corner by the highway, sometimes it wouldn’t -- and therefore I had to be present at my usual bus stop by 6:20 a.m. sharp, just in case it would arrive early that day. I was twelve years old at the time, and wouldn’t get my first phone for another year yet. The other kids at the stop were at least a few years older -- much too intimidating for my shy self to approach. And so it went that most days I was left with that little chunk of time with absolutely nothing to do but stand there and wait.
And boy, was I good at it.
Boredom is most often defined as “an emotional and occasionally psychological state experienced when an individual is left without anything in particular to do, is not interested in their surroundings, or feels that a day or period is dull or tedious.” When I was younger, I saw this tedium as an opportunity. Whenever I found myself free of the distracting stimuli of school or entertainment -- like my spare minutes waiting for the bus -- my mind readily shifted into a state of wandering freedom; re-running memories, formulating stories and characters to live in them, or even just taking some time to mull over how I was feeling that morning. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was actually allowing myself to experience a very intuitive form of meditation that both bolstered my imagination and brought me more in touch with myself.
But eight years and one global pandemic later, I finally realized that I’d somehow lost this skill. I found myself desperately avoiding boredom at all costs; scrolling through twitter in line at the grocery store, binging Netflix while preparing meals, or needing to have anything blasting in my headphones in order to complete the tiniest of chores. I used to be an expert at spacing out and staring into the invisible middle-distance, so much so that my friends knew of it as one of my more noticeable quirks. But it seems that now the fear of my mind being left in standby mode activated the most avoidant behaviors in me.
What caused this drastic change in me, and why had I forgotten how to be bored? And I’m not alone in wondering why. I knew I had a problem with being addicted to my phone (I try to limit myself to two hours of screen time each day, and always fail spectacularly), but there was something else; some deeper instinct to avoid idleness at all costs. Despite our eagerness to blame this decline in our attention span on computers and smartphones stocked with easily accessible distraction, I believe there is a second cause: the culture of hyper-productivity that runs rampant in modern America.
I was raised to believe that time is money, and the increasingly capitalistic nation we live in wholeheartedly upheld this idea. As a young creative for whom the success of my future career depends on the amount of work that I assign myself, this ethos had become the most advantageous for my professional advancement while simultaneously wreaking havoc on my very ability to just… exist. Any moment not spent either on entertainment or productivity filled me with intense guilt. My time was worth nothing if it wasn’t worth money. I couldn’t see that I also deserved some of that time for myself.
The body and mind need time to process the facts of being alive, to understand what they’ve witnessed over the course of one day. Staring at the ceiling and letting your thoughts wander (and no, listening to music or a podcast while doing this doesn’t count, sorry) is immensely restorative. We need those moments in order to thrive.
In the end it all comes down to balance. Dedicate time to work and play because yes, they are wonderful and necessary and a part of our lives. But be sure to carve out time in your day to just sit and stare out the window. To hum a nonexistent tune to yourself while you wait in traffic. Maybe even settle in to watch some paint dry. You might find your truest self there, in the throes of boredom. In the wonderful act of doing nothing.