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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

#81

Post by e40 »

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…

Well said. So perhaps it would be better codified as:

Idleness is not a problem to be solved. It's the last privilege of a free mind.

I have a 14 yr old and I rarely see him idle. I've had long conversations about this, but the lure of electronic devices is just so strong. I'm actively working to change his behavior, though.

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

#82

Post by SupremumLimit »

duaneb wrote: post #76
fsloth wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ca…

Perhaps a rejection of agricultural society and a return to nomadic life would help. But then you also face fears about extinction much more readily. Alternatively, working less, vacationing more would help a lot, and make the idea of "less work that needs to be done" more palatable to people who have attached their very values to their careers and being needed by society.

Nomadic life is simply not possible for 7.3 billion people on this planet. It requires much lower population density.

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

#83

Post by omouse »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #21

Each day at work I put in headphones, code for a bit, read HN for a bit, then back to code. I don't know if I could describe it as boredom, maybe confused context switching. It brings to mind how the protagonist of Neuromancer gets hooked on amphetamines after being surgically banned from the Internet. We get so used to everything happening quickly and efficiently that our brains don't have time to rest. If you're no…

I've been struggling against boredom for the last 3 months. The reason for the constant context switching is to fight off boredom for a few minutes or a few hours to get something done, anything done at all.

Even when carving out time at work for what I want to do, it feels tiring.

When our time is owned by someone else or when our creativity is ignored by someone else we can feel boredom and we can feel tired. I thought it would be fun to hack on Python all day and to explore a new JavaScript web framework; instead I've felt tired and just waiting for 5 or 6pm to just leave and then come home and avoid computers completely.

Maybe we're just feeling like burnt out Colin Laney from All Tomorrow's Parties?

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

#84

Post by meatysnapper »

SupremumLimit wrote: post #82
duaneb wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps a rejection of agricultural society and a return to nomadic life would help. But then you also face fears about extinction much more readily. Alternatively, working less, vacationing more would help a lot, and make the idea of "less work that needs to be done" more palatable to people who have attached their very values to their careers and being needed by society.

Nomadic life is simply not possible for 7.3 billion people on this planet. It requires much lower population density.

The gypsies would like to have a word with you. Now it's true the modern nation state puts a damper on them (the essential conflict between nomadic and sedentary societies) it can still be done.

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

#85

Post by SpaceCadetJones »

doomtop wrote: post #69
maroonblazer wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 brea…

I was going to say the same. I recently started my meditation practice again and I noticed I'm not quite as easily able to get the waters in my mind to settle, but I remember when I did I could go many seconds (maybe even a minute) without having any thoughts un-related to my breath. It's really beautiful to feel it in such a calm state

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

#86

Post by ebt »

ThomPete wrote: post #32

I think she is using the term boredom in a somewhat misguided way. In fact it seems like he is really talking about something else — laziness. Boredom is to literally not know what to do because nothing excites you. What she is talking about is that we have become so lazy that instead of taking up a hobby we just end up using cellphones to kill time. Which i would agree with but it's a quite different point.

I was looking for a definition of "boredom" that I agree with and "literally not know[ing] what to do because nothing excites you" is the one I most agree with and is the most succinct.

I could replace "excites" with "interests", "relaxes" or some other state changing term.

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

#88

Post by Fjolsvith »

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…

You might say that, but after several months of a form of Tibetan buddhist meditation, I extended my attention span to well over five hours. I found I could retrain my mind to be silent and do what I wanted.

The form of meditation is detailed in the book "Turning the Mind into an Ally" by Sakyong Mipham and Pema Chodron.

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

#89

Post by willhinsa »

manaskarekar wrote: post #8

Scott Adams on Boredom Creativity: http://blog.dilbert.com/post/102881562226/creativity Possibly paywalled WSJ article titled 'The Heady Thrill of Having Nothing to Do': http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240531119034545045764864... Googling for the article should help.

Here's a link to the non-paywalled article:

http://is.gd/5aMvOW

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

#90

Post by partisan »

Fjolsvith wrote: post #88
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…

You might say that, but after several months of a form of Tibetan buddhist meditation, I extended my attention span to well over five hours. I found I could retrain my mind to be silent and do what I wanted. The form of meditation is detailed in the book "Turning the Mind into an Ally" by Sakyong Mipham and Pema Chodron.

Are you happier than you were when you started? Are you more productive? As someone who was recently diagnosed with ADD in my mid-30s, I am weary of medicating and would really like to find a natural approach to achieving focus and through that, happiness.
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