Boredom

I found this article, Netflix Thinks You're Bored and Lonely, really interesting. I particularly enjoyed the G.K Chesterton quote. The whole article (by Trevin Wax) is well worth a read.

Let’s start with boredom. The entertainment industry expects us to see boredom as bad, which is why advertisers, sponsors, filmmakers, and game-makers collaborate to create shows, movies, and games that will capture our attention and keep us preoccupied. There’s money to be made in eliminating boredom.

But is boredom always a problem, or could it be a possibility? Talk to people whose job it is to make things with their hands or create things in their head, and they’ll tell you that great things happen when your mind runs free.

For most people, eliminating boredom means choosing activities that demand little to nothing of you. But there are better, more rewarding ways to respond to boredom. You can pick activities that stretch your mind and heart. Or, you can simply look around and become interested.

G. K. Chesterton said there is no such thing on earth as an uninteresting subject, only an uninterested person. Boredom, in this light, can be thrilling:

I can recall in my childhood the continuous excitement of long days in which nothing happened; and an indescribable sense of fullness in large and empty rooms. And with whatever I retain of childishness (and whether it be a weakness or otherwise, I think I retain more than most) I still feel a very strong and positive pleasure in being stranded in queer quiet places, in neglected corners where nothing happens and anything may happen; in unfashionable hotels, in empty waiting-rooms, or in watering-places out of the season. It seems as if we needed such places, and sufficient solitude in them, to let certain nameless suggestions soak into us and make a richer soil of the subconsciousness. The imagination can not only enjoy darkness; it can even enjoy dullness.

Boredom provides the path for imagination to tread upon. It also provides the path for self-discipline. Without boredom, how do we teach children how to behave in a restaurant, how to sing and pray and listen in church, or how to politely carry on a conversation that isn’t immediately interesting?

We shouldn’t treat boredom as a problem to be solved. So, thanks, Netflix, but boredom is not something we want to eliminate.