Let us begin with a cool story—a story about two astronauts:
In
Out of My Skull
, psychologists John D. Eastwood and James Danckert compare two astronauts who responded very differently to the constraints and monotony of space exploration.
Russia’s
Valentin Lebedev
, who spent 211 days in space in the early 1980s, failed to be satisfied by the busy work dictated by ground control and, after five months, did not “even want to look out of a porthole”.
On the contrary, as commander of the International Space Station in 2013, Canadian
Chris Hadfield
found purpose even in plumbing repairs.
The psychologists suggest it was Hadfield’s intrinsic motivation to find meaning in what he was doing, and to occupy and challenge himself within the confines of his environment, that set the two astronauts apart. Hadfield claims to never be bored – but, Danckert says, it’s more that “he just deals with it really very well”.
Let us have a better understanding of boredom, to be more cheerful like Chris Hadfield and less like the miserable Valentin. In this essay, I will breakdown the neurology of boredom and how different ancient philosophies dealt with it.
Boredom, as you may think, is a very neutral feeling. A sense of inactiveness where you want to do something, but none of the possible activities you can do excite you. Even though it seems like a harmless feeling, most people prefer physical pain instead of spending a few minutes in boredom, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Virginia.
In a test, nearly half of the subjects gave themselves mildly painful shocks during 15 minutes of quiet time.
So it is valid to conclude that boredom is more undesirable than physical pain.
You can observe your behavior to conclude the same. Our immediate response to boredom is to do something—whether an endless scroll on social media or checking our work e-mail—thinking that a gap of inactivity in our daily routine is a sin.
In this essay, I will shed light on how different schools of ancient philosophy—Taoism, Stoicism, and Buddhism—dealt with boredom.
Is Boredom Good for You?
The question—whether boredom is good or bad for you—is debatable. There are research papers written that support the idea of boredom being a stimulus to creativity and a lot of other virtues.
On the other hand, there’s evidence that suggests that easily bored people are at higher risk for depression, anxiety, drug addiction, eating disorders, hostility, anger, poor social skills, bad grades, and low work performance.
Neurology of Boredom
Contrary to the prevalent assumption, when bored, your brain activity reduces only by 5%. MRI images of people, when they were bored, actually showed greater activity in the regions responsible for recalling autobiographical memory, conceiving the thoughts and feelings of others, and conjuring hypothetical events—the literary areas of the brain, as Jennifer Schuessler pointed out in her essay “Our Boredom, Ourselves”.
Taking into consideration another neurological pov, our brain needs stimulation in a balanced amount—neither too much nor too little.
Boredom signifies an unstimulated mind. But our brain needs stimulation to generate new brain cells, that is, to encourage neurogenesis. It can extend the lives of brain cells that already exist in certain regions.
To avoid insufficient stimulation in your brain, your impulse to boredom is to do something exciting. It’s in our nature to pick up tasks that— we are familiar with and increase the flow of dopamine. This is why, in 2020, social media is our go-to anti-boredom gadget. Or, in worse cases, drugs.
If a person is newly sober and feeling bored, they could look to substance use as a way to incite the necessary stimulation. Boredom, believe it or not, is a major cause of addiction.
You can conclude that neurology has a two-sided opinion toward boredom, which seems to discredit both sides of its opinion. But, if you look closely, you will observe that neurology is giving us a coherent answer.
I think, there is nothing inherently wrong with boredom. It is just a blank space of time eager to getting occupied by any task. A good task can make boredom meaningful; a bad task can make it self-destructive.
Boredom, I think, can be very productive and refreshing if and only if experienced the right way. That’s exactly what I have to discuss in this essay—the right way of getting bored.
The world today needs to spend more time in boredom than ever before. It is as Blaise Pascal, the great French philosopher and mathematician wrote 400 years ago:
All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.
Our habit of always entertaining ourselves after encountering a slight sense of boredom has disconnected us from the real self. Boredom, in my opinion, is a golden opportunity to re-establish the connection with your thoughts and intentions—to look at life through the lens of metacognition.
In one US survey, 95% of adults said they'd found time for leisure activity in the previous 24 hours, but 83% said they'd spent zero time just thinking.
The biggest problem with our generation is that we don’t think.
Let us see how different schools of philosophy promoted this idea.
Here’s How Taoists Embrace Boredom
Taoism (also known as Daoism) is a Chinese philosophy attributed to Lao Tzu. It is the philosophy that gave birth to the famous yin-yang symbol.
I am no expert in Taoism. I have just grazed over the ideologies of Taoists while reading this book. My major takeaway from Taoism is developing the ability to live in harmony with nature. Looking for life lessons in environmental dynamics is one of the best leisure activities for the practitioners of Taoism.
So, for a Taoist, daydreaming while enjoying the beauty of nature is one of the best leisure activities.
Fun Fact:
Bruce Lee, who was publically an atheist, resonated with a lot of Taoist ideas. His famous interview clip—
Be like water—
is an epitomic example of Taoist philosophy.
Tea Ceremony of Zen
One of the greatest Zen thinkers, Sen no Rikyu, involved himself in teaching people how to drink tea in consoling and therapeutic ways.
The Japanese had been drinking tea since the 9th century, the practice having been imported from China by merchants and monks. But it was Rikyū’s achievement to put the tea ceremony on a more rigorous and profound philosophical footing.
Rikyū promoted the idea of drinking tea in silence, being in the moment, cherishing every sip of it.
Here’s How Stoics Spend Their Free Time
Stoics value their time, a lot. They consider every minute that passes as a step closer to death. Every moment is valuable for them, even the time they rest. Stoics prefer spending their leisure time doing things that are pleasurable but virtuous as well.
They will read, write, play sports, observe natural beauty, enjoy art, meditate, meet friends. Drinking alcohol, watching tv, masturbating, playing computer games, are a big no.
Stoics also emphasize the importance of spending time in solitude. They suggest you to be content spending time in your company. Introspection is the only way to realize what matters in life and what you want out of it.
Sitting in silence—untangling your thoughts and ideas— is an antidote to all your daily stress. It is the most blissful thing in my routine, even though, on a surface level it appears to be boring. This activity, for most of us, is the definition of boredom— sitting alone with nothing to do—but not for the stoics.
Nothing, to my way of thinking, it better proof of a well-ordered mind than a man’s ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company.”
— Seneca
Here’s How Curious Buddhists Deal With Boredom
From the Buddhist perspective, boredom arises due to the habit of the mind to label experience as either pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral. This labeling is referred to in Buddhism as 'vedana' or feeling tone. Boredom arises when we are in any situation where the most obvious feeling tone is neutral.
To be able to overcome boredom, we need to see beyond the conditioned feeling tone. We do this by becoming more interested in what we are experiencing at this moment. Curiosity is the magic sauce – it forces the brain to reevaluate its application of the ‘neutral’ label.
Over time, we begin to see that anything we give our full attention to appears interesting. Even something as simple as breathing becomes a wonderous experience when we approach it with curiosity.
The key to beating boredom it to become curious about what we are experiencing rather than to try to change the experience.
One of the nice benefits of regular meditation is that we train ourselves to find lack of stimulation interesting. Because of this, we start to experience deep states of stillness that soothe us. We get a taste for peace. We realize that it is this stillness that we most deeply yearn for and not the tension of being constantly stimulated.
One thing that is common in the ideas of all these ancient philosophies is Mindfulness—being in the moment.
When we’re mindful, we reduce stress, enhance performance, gain insight and awareness through observing our own minds, and increase our attention to others’ well-being.
Mindfulness meditation gives us a time in our lives when we can suspend judgment and unleash our natural curiosity about the workings of the mind, approaching our experience with warmth and kindness—to ourselves and others.
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Thank you.
I am glad to have read this in boredom