It's OK to be Bored
No. 31
This week I deleted the Substack app from my phone. Despite turning off the alerts I still found myself constantly checking and refreshing. Dopamine, that slayer of boredom, definitely has a hypnotic hold on me and the Substack app is as effective a dealer as any.
It’s good for me to remember that it’s OK to be bored. Probably healthy, even.
Growing up there was only one screen in our house. It only played what was on and we had to share it. We spent hours as kids poring over the tv listings from the Saturday paper, negotiating over who got to watch what and when.
Boredom was very real.
A good friend of mine texted me these thoughts last week:
Boredom is the fountain of curiosity
I’m just fascinated that we don’t let ourselves or our children be bored anymore, and honestly one of the great things about running or doing anything for an extended period of time that is dedicated to just one thing like biking or hiking is that your mind gets to finally get bored
They really resonated and directly inspired the zine. It seems as a society we’ve “fixed” boredom to such a degree that now we have to seek it out in deprivation chambers, or make time for it like exercise.
I love this scene from Back to the Future 3 where Doc Brown expounds on all the wonders of the 1985 to a bunch of drunk cowboys from 1885. Never would have guessed as a kid I would one day try to be bored - for fun. Life is so weird.
Further credit is probably due to
over on Social Media Escape Club. I’d been reading his work these last few weeks and getting ever closer to that big red eject button. Thanks for the shove.I post them to notes so if you’re interested be sure to follow along there.
I will be out of the country for two weeks so the next two newsletters have already been written and scheduled. I don’t plan on bringing my computer and have no idea what sort of service we’ll get but I’m hopeful it’s terrible. We could all use a good unplugging every now and again.
Hands will be drawn but I have no idea if they will get posted daily.
As always, thanks for reading and see you in a few weeks.
I will leave you with this unrelated video of a master at work. Enjoy.
ah! Thank you so much for the shout out!
Amazing work! Seth Godin says that "boredom is a partner with satisfaction and joy." There's a certain kind of ennui that comes from doing nothing. A particular flavor of restlessness and tension. A craving for invention. To the part of our hearts that bends toward making it's delicious. When left to it's own devices it will fabricate any number of creative ways to relieve the unease of empty spaces, and it will be better than anything we could have devised any other way.