I think boredom is basically the result of a mismatch between small and big concepts of identity. By that I mean the feeling of being bored arises when the following conditions are true:
1. You don’t enjoy the thing you’re doing for itself, intrinsically
2. You can’t see how doing this thing now adds up to a greater purpose and long-term goal. This lack of a path leads to a loss of interest in the particular moment.
For #1, I really like what Japanese thought has to say about this. More specifically, Zen Buddhist-adjacent ideas like wabi sabi and the haiku poetry form. [1] They really help you center yourself on the moment and appreciate the impermanence of existence, which gets rid of that “wasted time” feeling.
#2 is more tricky and this problem is more endemic to modernity as a whole. I’m not sure what the solution is, other than to make long-term life plans and consistently fight off all of the cultural pressure to discard them and YOLO instead.
1. I wrote about wabi sabi and haiku on my (somewhat inactive) Substack last year, which you might find interesting:
Boredom signals we've lost our curiosity - we're either too serious or stuck exploiting the familiar. Cultivating "engaged curiosity" is the key. It's a self-reinforcing cycle: the more we explore and play with open attention, the more meaning we create.
This curiosity flywheel builds momentum through our actions. Nobody else can spark it for us; we must actively nurture it. The trick is keeping our attention open to catch novel sparks from the world, rather than retreating to the safe and known.
I'm reading this article because I'm bored.
And I'm commenting this midway into the article because I got bored again.
I guess the author really did get his point across.
Overstimulation is something that definitely contributes to boredom. Life isn't always exciting, it's no action movie. Everything would pale in comparison to the most interesting thing done.
I found in my day to day life, everything is getting boring. Work cannot hold a candle to how interesting games or movies are. It's almost become a depression, is the rest of my life going to be THIS boring?
I don't know, I find creating things extremely exciting. As long as I can make something, I'm never bored. Games and movies bore me just because they pale so much in comparison to creating. I'm never not excited.
Absolutely agree, it took me most of my adult life to understand I was attracted to programming as a kid because of the creative flow it gives. Also why the usual day job at a bigger company in tech is not even close to fun as it is during the times I'm working on a pet project.
Anything too passive like watching films/series, or playing single player games which takes 40-80h to complete can bore the hell out of me but skill-based games are almost like crack. Same to creative efforts, making music (while trying to improve on it), photography, woodworking, they all put me into hyperfocus mode easily.
Adult life with all the duties is exhausting and drains mental/physical energy every day, to the point that nothing _meaningful_ can be achieved really. No, usually work is pointless exchange of time/energy vs money in order to live comfortably, sometimes sugarcoated in a higher "mission/vision".
Being in a stressed state also favors a mindset of "getting it done" with the actual goal of getting rid of the task at hand, aka "productivity", and some people think that a series of these completitions are a trajectory towards something rewarding - for me it isn't.
But when there are these moments where duties (work, kids, household, ...) are actually done, when there is no desire to play/watch the latest thing right now, this is when the good kind of boredom kicks in for me:
aimless reflection. mentally consolidating myself into the world, where am I, where things are going to, where I want to be next, how to probably get there. Going through it feels very relaxing, and activates some very existential kind of creativity (not the "solve the problem smarter thing), and fuels my energy a lot more than anything else in life. Being in this bored state is a precursor of feeling control over life again, and adjusting the inner compass to get updated directions to follow.
... but this doesn't happen when being busy/distracted, a state that drains my energy, and even accumulates dread every single day until the stressors are gone again and I feel "bored".
I live a life of essentially aimless reflection, and while I can appreciate it, I can tell you that it can also be too much - as the sibling comment alludes, you must be getting something out of (work, kids, household, ...), because I can attest that while I agree with you that work isn't really optional in an industrial society if you want a few modern amenities, the other parts of that set are.
agreed in general! however, thats the crucial point for me.
example: time with kids.
when there are tradeoffs everywhere, and assume I am in the more money/less time spectrum, there are situations where I simply have to kill time with the kids or get them engaged somehow. Its not quality time at all, its mostly a distraction while other duties are piling up on top. I feel guilty, and the kids probably won't have a great time.
This is a vastly different situation when there are no conflicting duties in that moment, and I can freely decide to spent quality time with them, and be creative upfront about what cool endeavor we could tackle together.
The point is that I want to be always in the latter state, without making any sacrifices on amenities/comfort because of that.
Aligning everything perfectly in todays world as-is basically means hitting the lottery jackpot. The high paying jobs are either bullshit/boring or the good ones extremely rare, there are market reasons why they're paid highly in most cases after all. So its either sucking it up or make sacrifices elsewhere.
I think you are missing the main point is that all the duties you picked up yourself because you saw some value in them, they were not forced on you. Trying to understand why you did that in the first place might help.
>usually work is pointless exchange of time/energy vs money
This is a terrible normality, if you don't have a greater vision to work towards by yourself, at least find work that is fun.
well the first thing is that having to earn an income is not something that was optional really. Sure you can decide to not do it, but then you have tradeoffs in how comfortable your life situation is. its kind of a free time XOR money situation when you're not born wealthy. free time without money sucks differently than money without free time.
and with making money, some amounts of duties are attached, depending on how you do it. more like a "pick your poison" situation instead of being optional entirely.
also I have sold too many visions to too many people by myself professionally to actually believe the "change the world" bullshit anymore, ever. organizations first and foremost exist to make money, even charities at some point either prioritize it to some extend or they cease to function, and charities also tend to not pay well compared to real industry jobs, so again trade-offs.
you can say "well thats the system" or "thats how capitalism works!" - and then you have it, "the system" forced these duties onto myself.
I personally would prefer an environment not focussed on money, being able to live comfortably and being able to do things that are interesting or truly helpful for others instead. But hey, most people can imagine the literal end of the world easier than the end of capitalism, even though the concept itself isn't that old or "god given" to begin with.
people discussing the "future of work" in the face of rising AI and robotics really should have a look at Marx again how this will play out.
I have found being tired makes me unapt to plow through mundane things that need to be done. I have found I was snoring and doing sleep apnea, got a dentition apparatus (€800 in France, mostly reimbursed) to move the lower mandibula forward, and bahm, motivation is back. However my teeth don’t align anymore and I’m quite upset about that part.
But at least I plow through normal difficulties, which helps me organize holidays and house maintenance better, which helps me find much better fulfillment in life.
The equivalent of looking into a full fridge and finding nothing to eat. There's some sort of hyper fixation you get when your mind locks onto some certain thing and it makes everything else feel inadequate in that moment.
Worst part is that you don't always know what that certain thing is. Ever feel hungry but you scroll through places aimlessly and can't put your finger on that "taste" you want? Happened to me today.
The state of boredom is due to a lack of focus, goals, and having too many options.
Also, bored people are typically boring people.
Remove all social media, stop reading the news, get on top of your finances, keep a small but significantly valued group of friends, have a vision for your life, and have honbies and side projects, and failing all that - get off your ass and go for a walk. If you’re disabled that last part makes things tricky though unfortunately for some.
I’m never bored, there’s too many rabbit holes and too much work to do
This is such a bad sentiment. Being bored is fine and a normal part of existance, it doesn't make a person boring. There are LOTS of reasons to get bored and we don't all need to feel stimulated all of the time. Being bored can push people to do something new, being bored can just be down to having to watch Cars with your kid for the 1000th time because they want to watch it with you and you don't always put your own self first. Being bored can also be due to burnout, trying to chase all the shiney new stuff to make yourself feel interesting.
I think the platitude is geared towards people who are chronically or continuously bored.
The subtext is that when motivated and engaged people feel bored they find something to do. They recognize that the emotion they experience does not indicate that the world is devoid of engaging activities and ideas.
> I’m never bored, there’s too many rabbit holes and too much work to do
It is a temporary condition. At some point on thousandth rabbit hole you'll feel yourself bored, and decide not to dive deeper, because what is the point. Probably you will be able to use rabbit holes as a means to fight boredom for some time afterwards, but it would be harder and harder with time passed.
Many people I know felt something like that with video games. Video games were interesting. Then they became not so interesting. And then people just lost the point of playing video games. My brother was constantly upgrading his PC to play newest titles. Now he is still upgrading his PC, because it makes him feel happy, but he doesn't play anymore. I never upgraded my PC to play a game, I played those that could run on the hardware I had. Now I don't play games either. I try sometimes to play to fight boredom, but it doesn't work, it is more boring to play now than not to play.
> Remove all social media, stop reading the news, get on top of your finances, keep a small but significantly valued group of friends, have a vision for your life
You know, it is easier to learn how to deal with boredom than to achieve all this points. Some people never manage to have friends or to get on top of their finances.
All these things is what maybe makes you immune to boredom. It doesn't mean it will help others: people are wonderfully different. But the worse: probably all these things have nothing to do with your lack of boredom. What you witness is a correlation, it doesn't have to be a causation, it can even be a spurious correlation.
I lost interest in video games all of a sudden when I saw how they were made, and how all those little design elements were made to keep the player's interest and attention. I was like "oh, I'm being manipulated constantly when playing this". Really put me off, like "seeing how sausages are made".
I'm bored when I'm doing things that I'm not interested in, but at the same time, have to pay a lot of attention, like attending some of the meetings, or certain lectures when I was a student.
The problem is the opposite of having too many options. If I have options, if the situation allows my mind wonder, if I don't need to focus, but instead can think about anything, I can easily sit there for hours without getting bored.
I'm old enough to be able to remember when there were ~6 TV channels, and, really, only 4 of them actually worked.
You had option A, B, C, or D, and you picked on. Usually it came down to an A or B.
Now with 300 channels I get lost in choosing something, and ultimately default to something generic as background noise as opposed to actually giving it my attention.
While I kind of despise the platitude you were leading with about boring people being bored. I think this sentiment is key. By removing modern stimulation (including checking HN too often), you get bored at first, very bored, until your mind can appreciate the novelty it finds on its own instead of being spoon-fed by the constant online shouting match.
Neat, I just need to get a job... oh, jobs aren't biting, not much I can do except study... oh, don't have time (nor money) to do fun stuff.
Yeah, I've admittedly been a boring person the past 15 months or so. I wouldn't confuse boring with lethargic, though. You really can't do much more than meander around to keep up your physical spirits up and invert binary trees to keep your metal spirits up while you wait between rounds of tech interviews that (these days) have a 70% chance to ghost you.
Readit News
1. You don’t enjoy the thing you’re doing for itself, intrinsically
2. You can’t see how doing this thing now adds up to a greater purpose and long-term goal. This lack of a path leads to a loss of interest in the particular moment.
For #1, I really like what Japanese thought has to say about this. More specifically, Zen Buddhist-adjacent ideas like wabi sabi and the haiku poetry form. [1] They really help you center yourself on the moment and appreciate the impermanence of existence, which gets rid of that “wasted time” feeling.
#2 is more tricky and this problem is more endemic to modernity as a whole. I’m not sure what the solution is, other than to make long-term life plans and consistently fight off all of the cultural pressure to discard them and YOLO instead.
1. I wrote about wabi sabi and haiku on my (somewhat inactive) Substack last year, which you might find interesting:
https://onthearts.com/p/how-to-write-a-proper-haiku
https://onthearts.com/p/what-does-wabi-sabi-really-mean
This curiosity flywheel builds momentum through our actions. Nobody else can spark it for us; we must actively nurture it. The trick is keeping our attention open to catch novel sparks from the world, rather than retreating to the safe and known.
https://childmind.org/article/the-benefits-of-boredom/
I found in my day to day life, everything is getting boring. Work cannot hold a candle to how interesting games or movies are. It's almost become a depression, is the rest of my life going to be THIS boring?
Anything too passive like watching films/series, or playing single player games which takes 40-80h to complete can bore the hell out of me but skill-based games are almost like crack. Same to creative efforts, making music (while trying to improve on it), photography, woodworking, they all put me into hyperfocus mode easily.
Adult life with all the duties is exhausting and drains mental/physical energy every day, to the point that nothing _meaningful_ can be achieved really. No, usually work is pointless exchange of time/energy vs money in order to live comfortably, sometimes sugarcoated in a higher "mission/vision".
Being in a stressed state also favors a mindset of "getting it done" with the actual goal of getting rid of the task at hand, aka "productivity", and some people think that a series of these completitions are a trajectory towards something rewarding - for me it isn't.
But when there are these moments where duties (work, kids, household, ...) are actually done, when there is no desire to play/watch the latest thing right now, this is when the good kind of boredom kicks in for me:
aimless reflection. mentally consolidating myself into the world, where am I, where things are going to, where I want to be next, how to probably get there. Going through it feels very relaxing, and activates some very existential kind of creativity (not the "solve the problem smarter thing), and fuels my energy a lot more than anything else in life. Being in this bored state is a precursor of feeling control over life again, and adjusting the inner compass to get updated directions to follow.
... but this doesn't happen when being busy/distracted, a state that drains my energy, and even accumulates dread every single day until the stressors are gone again and I feel "bored".
example: time with kids.
when there are tradeoffs everywhere, and assume I am in the more money/less time spectrum, there are situations where I simply have to kill time with the kids or get them engaged somehow. Its not quality time at all, its mostly a distraction while other duties are piling up on top. I feel guilty, and the kids probably won't have a great time.
This is a vastly different situation when there are no conflicting duties in that moment, and I can freely decide to spent quality time with them, and be creative upfront about what cool endeavor we could tackle together.
The point is that I want to be always in the latter state, without making any sacrifices on amenities/comfort because of that.
Aligning everything perfectly in todays world as-is basically means hitting the lottery jackpot. The high paying jobs are either bullshit/boring or the good ones extremely rare, there are market reasons why they're paid highly in most cases after all. So its either sucking it up or make sacrifices elsewhere.
>usually work is pointless exchange of time/energy vs money
This is a terrible normality, if you don't have a greater vision to work towards by yourself, at least find work that is fun.
and with making money, some amounts of duties are attached, depending on how you do it. more like a "pick your poison" situation instead of being optional entirely.
also I have sold too many visions to too many people by myself professionally to actually believe the "change the world" bullshit anymore, ever. organizations first and foremost exist to make money, even charities at some point either prioritize it to some extend or they cease to function, and charities also tend to not pay well compared to real industry jobs, so again trade-offs.
you can say "well thats the system" or "thats how capitalism works!" - and then you have it, "the system" forced these duties onto myself.
I personally would prefer an environment not focussed on money, being able to live comfortably and being able to do things that are interesting or truly helpful for others instead. But hey, most people can imagine the literal end of the world easier than the end of capitalism, even though the concept itself isn't that old or "god given" to begin with.
people discussing the "future of work" in the face of rising AI and robotics really should have a look at Marx again how this will play out.
It's probably linked to my ADHD, it's one of the most frustrating states I can find myself in.
But at least I plow through normal difficulties, which helps me organize holidays and house maintenance better, which helps me find much better fulfillment in life.
Worst part is that you don't always know what that certain thing is. Ever feel hungry but you scroll through places aimlessly and can't put your finger on that "taste" you want? Happened to me today.
Dead Comment
Also, bored people are typically boring people.
Remove all social media, stop reading the news, get on top of your finances, keep a small but significantly valued group of friends, have a vision for your life, and have honbies and side projects, and failing all that - get off your ass and go for a walk. If you’re disabled that last part makes things tricky though unfortunately for some.
I’m never bored, there’s too many rabbit holes and too much work to do
This is such a bad sentiment. Being bored is fine and a normal part of existance, it doesn't make a person boring. There are LOTS of reasons to get bored and we don't all need to feel stimulated all of the time. Being bored can push people to do something new, being bored can just be down to having to watch Cars with your kid for the 1000th time because they want to watch it with you and you don't always put your own self first. Being bored can also be due to burnout, trying to chase all the shiney new stuff to make yourself feel interesting.
The subtext is that when motivated and engaged people feel bored they find something to do. They recognize that the emotion they experience does not indicate that the world is devoid of engaging activities and ideas.
It is a temporary condition. At some point on thousandth rabbit hole you'll feel yourself bored, and decide not to dive deeper, because what is the point. Probably you will be able to use rabbit holes as a means to fight boredom for some time afterwards, but it would be harder and harder with time passed.
Many people I know felt something like that with video games. Video games were interesting. Then they became not so interesting. And then people just lost the point of playing video games. My brother was constantly upgrading his PC to play newest titles. Now he is still upgrading his PC, because it makes him feel happy, but he doesn't play anymore. I never upgraded my PC to play a game, I played those that could run on the hardware I had. Now I don't play games either. I try sometimes to play to fight boredom, but it doesn't work, it is more boring to play now than not to play.
> Remove all social media, stop reading the news, get on top of your finances, keep a small but significantly valued group of friends, have a vision for your life
You know, it is easier to learn how to deal with boredom than to achieve all this points. Some people never manage to have friends or to get on top of their finances.
All these things is what maybe makes you immune to boredom. It doesn't mean it will help others: people are wonderfully different. But the worse: probably all these things have nothing to do with your lack of boredom. What you witness is a correlation, it doesn't have to be a causation, it can even be a spurious correlation.
The problem is the opposite of having too many options. If I have options, if the situation allows my mind wonder, if I don't need to focus, but instead can think about anything, I can easily sit there for hours without getting bored.
I'm old enough to be able to remember when there were ~6 TV channels, and, really, only 4 of them actually worked.
You had option A, B, C, or D, and you picked on. Usually it came down to an A or B.
Now with 300 channels I get lost in choosing something, and ultimately default to something generic as background noise as opposed to actually giving it my attention.
See also: Fromm's Escape From Freedom
> I’m never bored
This is a contradiction, finding someone or something boring means you are bored by it ;)
Deleted Comment
While I kind of despise the platitude you were leading with about boring people being bored. I think this sentiment is key. By removing modern stimulation (including checking HN too often), you get bored at first, very bored, until your mind can appreciate the novelty it finds on its own instead of being spoon-fed by the constant online shouting match.
Neat, I just need to get a job... oh, jobs aren't biting, not much I can do except study... oh, don't have time (nor money) to do fun stuff.
Yeah, I've admittedly been a boring person the past 15 months or so. I wouldn't confuse boring with lethargic, though. You really can't do much more than meander around to keep up your physical spirits up and invert binary trees to keep your metal spirits up while you wait between rounds of tech interviews that (these days) have a 70% chance to ghost you.
I was curious to see the non-obvious, eye-opening solution.
But the solution is a reworded “resign yourself to boredom.”
I still appreciate this conclusion, and it’s the one I expected from the article’s opener, but I’m not sure how else to describe fixing this.
Expect to be bored. It’s a superpower if you can embrace it. Definitely not healthy to flit from one exciting but fleeting activity to the next.