- When was the last time you were bored — truly bored — and didn’t instantly spring to fill your psychic emptiness by checking Facebook or Twitter or Instagram? The last time you stood in line at the store or the boarding gate or the theater and didn’t reach for your smartphone seeking deliverance from the dreary prospect of forced idleness? A century and a half ago, Kierkegaard argued that this impulse to escape the present by keeping ourselves busy is our greatest source of unhappiness. A century later, Susan Sontag wrote in her diary about the creative purpose of boredom. And yet ours is a culture that equates boredom with the opposite of creativity and goes to great lengths to offer us escape routes.
I've been meaning to get around to posting this article. I see you've beaten me to it. This was a captivating write up and I'll have to get that book (a shame there's no Kindle version). It's true that with boredom it often seems we're so quick to try and find something, anything, to fill the gap. However, like any negative emotion it always better to sit with it and explore its rooting and potential prospect. I myself have been increasingly bored over the past few months and have used it as catalyst to enhance my desires and broaden my horizons. It's funny because people often say something akin too: "I wish just had some more time where there was nothing to do/ just be with myself." However, as soon as boredom comes along and gifts them that opportunity they seek an escape. If you're never allow yourself to really be bored, you neglect the opportunity to explore who you are as a lone person. Sometimes its what you make of yourself in that situation that properly defines you.
No Kindle, but here's a .pdf: http://libgen.org/book/index.php?md5=14EE4B5336C1330E3FCE827FB25127AE