Being Bored Is Good • Hacker News Board

Re: Being Bored Is Good

#61

Post by sylk » Mon, Jul 08, 2019, 7:05 PM UTC

daveslash wrote: post #26

ryanponce wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Could you share information on where/how to volunteer to do this?

This is a great KPBS piece from 3 years ago. https://www.kpbs.org/news/2016/jul/08/sheep-counting-anza-bo... This is a great KQED piece from 2 years ago. https://www.kqed.org/news/11550455/volunteers-brave-extremes... Edit: I'm happy to share and am available for further questions, but for anyone planning to visit the any parts of the Southern California desert during the summer, please please don't plan to go all ou…

How do I find more of these sort of events...? I'm in the midwest and would be honored to do something like this.

Re: Being Bored Is Good

#62

Post by kbr2000 » Mon, Jul 08, 2019, 7:06 PM UTC

voidhorse wrote: post #8

stcredzero wrote: post #6

If it weren't for the crushing boredom of the suburbs when I was a child, I might not have learned how to program computers. I would never have thought so much about spaceships. The original Star Wars trilogy wouldn't have been nearly as cool to discover. I also play traditional music, though boredom wasn't part of my discovering that. However, silence was a big part of traditional music, in the past. You need empty…

Totally! I think what’s really important is having space to think. Stimulation seems to stopper the possibility of deep-thought. Having significant, radical, perhaps discomforting thoughts becomes impossible when we’re constantly aborting our opportunity to think by filling our lives with distractions. It’s an activity which really does require absence—séquestration and quiet space. I try to set aside time each day f…

I can suggest to give Future Shock (1970, Alvin Toffler) a go, it too has some thoughts about the effects of over-stimulation. Good thinking :)

Re: Being Bored Is Good

#63

Post by chris11 » Mon, Jul 08, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

stcredzero wrote: post #6

If it weren't for the crushing boredom of the suburbs when I was a child, I might not have learned how to program computers. I would never have thought so much about spaceships. The original Star Wars trilogy wouldn't have been nearly as cool to discover. I also play traditional music, though boredom wasn't part of my discovering that. However, silence was a big part of traditional music, in the past. You need empty…

That's how Neil Gaiman writes, he gets bored. He gets most of his ideas from boredom. And when he needs to write, he sits down and lets himself only do two things. Write, or look out the window.

Re: Being Bored Is Good

#64

Post by Accacin » Mon, Jul 08, 2019, 7:10 PM UTC

This sounds great and makes a lot of sense, but how do I get bored? Last week I walked the Jurassic Coast alone, and I loved it but I don't think I ever felt bored. If I'm at home I love to read or program and in the mornings I love to go out and run.. No headphones or music or phones, just me and my thoughts, but again I don't really feel bored.

Re: Being Bored Is Good

#65

Post by drinfinity » Mon, Jul 08, 2019, 7:12 PM UTC

soverance wrote: post #47

ricardobeat wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't understand how people can not feel lost if they don't create something that stems from their own selves For a majority of people, their greatest and most satisfying achievement will be their children. Nature doesn’t play around :)

> For a majority of people, their greatest and most satisfying achievement will be their children. This sentiment is grossly nauseating, to me. Having children is not an achievement. It may be satisfying and fulfilling, but it is in no way an "achievement". If your greatest contribution to the world is birthing a child, you have failed as a person.

Try it. You will fail.

It is way harder (to do it right) than anything you can imagine.

Re: Being Bored Is Good

#66

Post by z2 » Mon, Jul 08, 2019, 7:14 PM UTC

Maybe it's a language thing, but I wonder if for the most of human history, people simply weren't bored in the same sense as they are today. Wikipedia's article on boredom seems to suggest the concept only gained traction in the 17th century, while the term 'boring' took off in sync with 19th century industrialization!

1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boredom

2: https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=bored%2Cboredo...

Re: Being Bored Is Good

#67

Post by growlist » Mon, Jul 08, 2019, 7:17 PM UTC

Accacin wrote: post #64

This sounds great and makes a lot of sense, but how do I get bored? Last week I walked the Jurassic Coast alone, and I loved it but I don't think I ever felt bored. If I'm at home I love to read or program and in the mornings I love to go out and run.. No headphones or music or phones, just me and my thoughts, but again I don't really feel bored.

You need to not have anything to do. Just go and lie down in a barely furnished room with no distractions for a while. The boredom will surely come!

Re: Being Bored Is Good

#68

Post by ALittleLight » Mon, Jul 08, 2019, 7:18 PM UTC

soverance wrote: post #47

ricardobeat wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't understand how people can not feel lost if they don't create something that stems from their own selves For a majority of people, their greatest and most satisfying achievement will be their children. Nature doesn’t play around :)

> For a majority of people, their greatest and most satisfying achievement will be their children. This sentiment is grossly nauseating, to me. Having children is not an achievement. It may be satisfying and fulfilling, but it is in no way an "achievement". If your greatest contribution to the world is birthing a child, you have failed as a person.

Having children is immensely satisfying and fulfilling. It's challenging, time consuming, expensive, and productive. All the accomplishments of humanity stem from having children.

The vast, vast, majority of humanity will never accomplish anything that will rival raising children well. The remainder are those who invent, discover, build, and market those things that let us live and have children better.

Re: Being Bored Is Good

#69

Post by lm28469 » Mon, Jul 08, 2019, 7:19 PM UTC

soverance wrote: post #47

ricardobeat wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I just don't understand how people can not feel lost if they don't create something that stems from their own selves For a majority of people, their greatest and most satisfying achievement will be their children. Nature doesn’t play around :)

> For a majority of people, their greatest and most satisfying achievement will be their children. This sentiment is grossly nauseating, to me. Having children is not an achievement. It may be satisfying and fulfilling, but it is in no way an "achievement". If your greatest contribution to the world is birthing a child, you have failed as a person.

> if your greatest achievement is continuing the specie and leaving a legacy you have failed.

Ah ok.

99.9999% of people's life achievement die with them the second they pass away.

If you don't make it to Bach's level of achievement you'll be forgotten instantly. Enjoy simple things, life is beautiful without setting bs goals, play music, draw, dance, do some woodwork, who cares you'll most likely suck at it compared to the masters, just enjoy the process

Re: Being Bored Is Good

#70

Post by mrmuagi » Mon, Jul 08, 2019, 7:20 PM UTC

ne01 wrote: post #51

stcredzero wrote: post #6

If it weren't for the crushing boredom of the suburbs when I was a child, I might not have learned how to program computers. I would never have thought so much about spaceships. The original Star Wars trilogy wouldn't have been nearly as cool to discover. I also play traditional music, though boredom wasn't part of my discovering that. However, silence was a big part of traditional music, in the past. You need empty…

I really like this: > However, silence was a big part of traditional music, in the past. A glass is useful because of its empty space. You need the emptiness to fill it up with something. For inventions/ideas/startups, you need some empty space in your mind. Think of a bored computer (one that is not used to its maximum capacity). It's like a computer that uses swap memory v.s. one that has a few GBs of free RAM. Whi…

> Think of a bored computer (one that is not used to its maximum capacity). It's like a computer that uses swap memory v.s. one that has a few GBs of free RAM. Which one would you rather use?

A bored computer would just be one that idles more than it schedules work. Memory is not a good anthropomorphism to boredom. Why? Because swap memory can be beneficial to systems even if RAM is un-exhausted, and a system that has a few GBs of free RAM is a newly booted, or a poorly cached system, the extra ram is just unused extra resources -- untouched. Maybe, the system can be bored waiting for IO, but again this is stalled CPU cycles. The glass analogy would fit better to annotate the memory system architecture itself as the glass, a rigid and crafted system, and the water as the actual physical pages, the actual dynamic data that flows through.