#237: The Luxury of Boredom
A philosopher whose work I admire, Martha Nussbaum, has a theory about human development (and the development of a society) that includes a list of things people could be capable of - and if they are, then we can consider this society developed. Some are the ability to live in good health for what is considered a normal lifespan, the ability to move freely from place to place, the ability to express emotion, and - what I have always found the most interesting - the ability to play. When I think of the ability to play - either as a child or as an adult - I think of having free time. What do you have when you have too much free time? Boredom. As Corey writes below, boredom really is a luxury - perhaps even a metric of a development society. But while boredom may have traditionally negative connotations, it is not necessarily a negative thing. I have probably had more moments of boredom this year than many years past, and reading Corey’s piece has completely rewired how I think about this state of mind. Thank you, Corey! And happy birthday to you!
- Lauren
The Luxury of Boredom
It’s finally been happening lately. Something I haven’t felt for a long time. Maybe not since I was a kid. I know other people have been experiencing it, so this feeling does still exist, somewhere, just not in my experience recently. But there I was, raking the tenth pile of leaves as my kids blew bubbles in the yard when it hit me. This week I felt bored. A couple times, even! And it was wonderful.
I felt bored of my schedule being mostly the same thing, bored of having the same weekly conversations at work, bored with the same couple of options for dinner, and definitely bored of reading the same bedtime books to my kids, where they have to point out the exact same funny part of the illustrations (“Dad, Dad, Dad, that’s a DOG driving the train, right??”). It’s not that I don’t love doing all of these things, and also find my kids adorable, but it’s SO NICE to feel it that I think of my feeling bored as an award; it tells me that some part of me thinks I’ve achieved relative homeostasis.
You might be thinking this is all sarcastic, but I’m being fully candid with you.
It’s my belief that boredom is a luxury. I remember being bored in my childhood from time to time, and it was annoying. It was usually related to thinking I had limited options of things to do. All of my needs were more than met, and I was looking to grow into the next stage of something or other. As an adult, I’ve been almost ALWAYS on the move, feeling like there was always something more I could be doing to set myself up. Now I know better what John Lennon meant by saying, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans”.
The last time I really recall being bored as an adult for an extended period of time was at an internship I did right out of university; basically my first months out on my own, away from everyone I knew. It led to a HUGE amount of self-discovery, and gave me time to imagine, decide on, and set up a lot of my mental architecture for years to come. Pivotal times where the blandness of “boredom” — expansive nights of being poor in money but rich in time to reflect and wonder — was super important, now that I look back on them.
Feeling bored (that is, NOT trying to do a second something while doing a first something; *CV podcasts don’t count) also seems to have helped me find the space to better appreciate the small variations in how the big things happen. I’m quicker to agree to taking the fun but longer morning walk, to pick up that out-of-the-blue phone call from a friend, or even be down to support on a home improvement project that Early Summer Corey would have stayed far away from. Variety may be the spice of life, but having consistency is feeling like the antidote to years of heartburn.