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Boredom is not a problem to be solved, it's the privilege of a free mind

theguardian.com

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Re: Boredom is not a problem to be solved, it's the privilege of a free mind

#61

Post by popee »

zeidrich wrote: post #50

Boredom isn't the act of having nothing to do. That's idleness. Boredom is a problem of a lack of satisfaction. There's various reasons for that but I believe having too much to do, and too much stress is what leads to boredom. People have an amount of attention they can pay to any topic before they need to rest. You can only listen to a song for so long before it stops being pleasant and starts being annoying. You c…

Agreed, but it doesn't need to be routine behavior, it can be anything that doesn't suit you in particular moment. So, it's kind of unsolvable problem :-)

Re: Boredom is not a problem to be solved, it's the privilege of a free mind

#62

Post by danielbln »

maroonblazer wrote: post #40
jasim wrote: post #31

The author confuses a state of calm contentment with boredom. And despite the new-age rhetoric, she admits to trying to solve it - she asks us to think instead of doing things, in the hopes that thinking would help us stumble into profundity. But thought can be worse than action - thinking quickly spirals into brooding. Pardon me for yet another misrepresentation of depression, but I confuse it with boredom, albeit i…

>Zazen encourages us to meditate on our breath and to observe our thoughts so that they hopefully melt away. It asks us to think less, not more; to shut down our internal monologue which is the biggest agent of human misery. I know this wasn't the thrust of your comment but having spent a lot of time studying meditation it's important to note that meditation isn't about "thinking less". Rather it's about developing t…

I would make the point that mere observation of a thought can "disarm" it, preventing it from spiralling into a train of thought, as it were. Therefore I think it's fair to say that someone who rests in awareness is effectively thinking "less", (in contrast to the common misconception that the goal of meditation is to stop thinking, or to clear the mind altogether).

Re: Boredom is not a problem to be solved, it's the privilege of a free mind

#63

Post by sk8ingdom »

For anyone interested in the history of the concept and how it's manifested in theology, philosophy, and pop-culture, I highly recommend A Philosophy of Boredom by Lars Svendsen [1]. Although the translation isn't GREAT, the content is an excellent overview.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009KP5CAE/

Re: Boredom is not a problem to be solved, it's the privilege of a free mind

#65

Post by fsloth »

madaxe_again wrote: post #36
Htsthbjig wrote: post #15

For me boredom is the manifestation of a problem. I am introvert and could think on my own for days, but boredom never happens. Animals in the wild rarely get bored. I worked as an assistant in a zoo while teenager and you could see every single animal getting bored there. And today it is much better than in the past, because we are stating to understand them and we make them work for getting their food and so on. Af…

Agreed. Humans do not live in their natural state, and are so far removed from it that they do not know what they do not know that they lack. From this manifests much of the strife we experience. We talk of boredom - because we have grown accustomed to the idea that we must fill our time, and society presents antipathy to those who are content to merely sit and think. "What's wrong?" "You look troubled" "Would you li…

I don't get where the vengefullnes would come. You're in a good literary company.

Your ideas sound very much what Freud and Marx wrote of modern life - the latter whom was actually really acute about a great many things (despite what other did later in his name).

You option #1 sounds basically like Aldous Huxley's 'A brave new world.

Lots of modern people have fought with the dilemma you talked about. Quite a many came to the conclusion (Tolstoy, Gandhi, among them) that farm life was the best remedy. Unfortunately a comfortable farm life requires the support of an entire civilization so it's not a scalable solution.

Re: Boredom is not a problem to be solved, it's the privilege of a free mind

#67

Post by cmurf »

wnm wrote: post #56
zeidrich wrote: post #50

Boredom isn't the act of having nothing to do. That's idleness. Boredom is a problem of a lack of satisfaction. There's various reasons for that but I believe having too much to do, and too much stress is what leads to boredom. People have an amount of attention they can pay to any topic before they need to rest. You can only listen to a song for so long before it stops being pleasant and starts being annoying. You c…

fantastic comment! very well written. Can you share your thoughts on what to do when you're bored? Especially can you elaborate on the "your whole reward system of your brain has told you you've had enough of" part of your comment?

I distinguish between motivation and discipline. Some things just aren't that interesting but they need to be done, and I used to whine about lack of motivation. Then I "discovered" discipline when lack of motivation doesn't f'n matter. Just do it. When the importance wanes and tedium exceeds, I stop and go do something else. When everything seems more tedious than important, I go to sleep. I don't really ever call these things boredom, but I like the idea from another poster that boredom is a signal like hunger. Neither right nor wrong, just a state signal.

Re: Boredom is not a problem to be solved, it's the privilege of a free mind

#68

Post by enraged_camel »

Disruptive_Dave wrote: post #34

This feels a bit short-sighted to me. Maybe it's just use of terms at the end of the day. Telling a young person to "lean into boredom" is a recipe for disaster. And "thinking" as the antidote to boredom doesn't do much either. There's a quote that always stuck with me I ran into a while back that goes something like: "All day long we tell our children to 'Pay attention!' but we never actually teach them how." The pr…

>>solitary confinement is viewed as a significant punishment for bad behavior. Being alone with your thoughts is worse than being around criminals all day or locked in a cell!

Solitary confinement for a few days isn't a problem. What people have an issue with, and is unfortunately a very common practice, is when a prisoner is placed into solitary confinement for weeks at a time, or indefinitely. That is a form of torture.

Re: Boredom is not a problem to be solved, it's the privilege of a free mind

#69

Post by doomtop »

maroonblazer wrote: post #40
jasim wrote: post #31

The author confuses a state of calm contentment with boredom. And despite the new-age rhetoric, she admits to trying to solve it - she asks us to think instead of doing things, in the hopes that thinking would help us stumble into profundity. But thought can be worse than action - thinking quickly spirals into brooding. Pardon me for yet another misrepresentation of depression, but I confuse it with boredom, albeit i…

>Zazen encourages us to meditate on our breath and to observe our thoughts so that they hopefully melt away. It asks us to think less, not more; to shut down our internal monologue which is the biggest agent of human misery. I know this wasn't the thrust of your comment but having spent a lot of time studying meditation it's important to note that meditation isn't about "thinking less". Rather it's about developing t…

> it's important to note that meditation isn't about "thinking less".

You are likely more educated and informed about meditation and its purposes, but for myself, I use meditation specifically for the purpose of "thinking less". At least, that's how I'd describe it.

Thoughts still come, but I let them go almost immediately, which stymies the flow or deluge that would normally follow. I focus on ambient sound, or breathing, or whatever, nothing.

I can't turn the internal monologue off, but during meditation it does seem to fade out and it definitely feels like I am "thinking less".

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