And Amidst all our call cult of activities, we’ve come to see boredom as totally inexcusable, but contrary to that believe or perception that boredom is failure, boredom is actually good or shall I say vital for the mind and spirit.
By Adesoji Lydia (@lydisaam on twitter)
Any day I’m home with nowhere to go, my activities for that day will be something like this – more often than not: wake up from my sleep at any time I desire, eat when I feel like, sit with my books – academic or non-academic; fiction or nonfiction; scribble and write if I’m in the zone (like my boyfriend will say); go online and see what’s happening while I chat or reply my chat messages (I try to), watch TED talk or a movie, make and receive calls, and of course, sleep again. And then after, i press the repeat button, especially the one that controls reading and “sleep again”. And because the power supply in my area is dead and epileptic, I rarely get to watch TV and as such miss a lot from wrestling – at least I get to be hyper and scream
Aside from the unrelenting heat, my day is great. I know what you think, but no, I don’t get a feeling of emptiness or boredom – I’m just fine. But we’ve got some wonderful individuals who just can’t stand the thought of being alone not to talk of experiencing it and when they meet another with the opposite, they find that individual boring.
There is an adage that holds that one should be engaged in something productive or positive without which the negative will come to mind. We all know that adage, at least most of us do – “An idle mind is the Devil’s workshop.” As an individual, I spend a lot of time with myself and I’m not bothered or overly bored of myself and I consider it normal and thus greatly surprised when some individuals tell me that they just find it boring been alone – they just want to go out or have friends around – either ways, they don’t want to be alone.
With the spread of technology, being alone and doing nothing is a new sort of disease. People do lots of things – anything – just to be in the present – from social media to digital reading to playing games; from partying to cooking, gisting; even quarrelling ones neighbour (of course, it’s always the neighbour’s fault) – the list is endless. But there are benefits of solitude which can be achieved when one engage in nothing – just staring into space – or zone out like my boyfriend does.
Hedy Lamar says “I can excuse anything but boredom.” This age of time, we run away or avoid anything or environment that makes us bored. Very few individuals can stay alone in the dark and engage in thinking or go on a walk without a headset or stay in the garden/ field and admire nature’s little miracles. In defining boredom as simply a state of emptiness – an “emptiness” we all strife to avoid – we want every lacuna filled with something or someone.
In a country like mine where the power supply is on life support, we’ve all learnt to support our “existence” with a power bank or charger so that we can charge at every opportunity – we can’t just bear the pain of having our phones dead, they keep us company. And Amidst all our call cult of activities, we’ve come to see boredom as totally inexcusable, but contrary to that believe or perception that boredom is failure, boredom is actually good or shall I say vital for the mind and spirit.
Maria Popova holds that to be bored is to be unafraid of our interior lives – a form of moral courage central to being fully human. Bertrand Russell – a British philosopher, in his book, “Conquest of Happiness.” explained some exciting and enlightening things about boredom. The following are some of his quote:
“We are less bored than our ancestors were, but we are more afraid of boredom.
We have come to know, or rather believe, that boredom is not part of the natural
lot of man, but can be avoided by a sufficiently vigorous pursuit of excitement.”
“A wish to escape from boredom is natural; indeed all races of mankind have displayed
it as opportunity occurred… Wars, pogroms and persecutions have all been part of the
flight from boredom; even quarrels with neighbors have been found better than
nothing.”
“Boredom, however, is not to be regarded as wholly evil. There are two sorts,
of which one is fructifying, while the other is stultifying. The fructifying kind
arises from the absence of drugs and the stultifying kind from the absence of
vital activities.”
“There is an element of boredom which is inseparable from the avoidance of
too much excitement, and too much health, but dulls the palate for every kind
of pleasure, substituting titillations for profound organic satisfactions,
cleverness for wisdom and jagged surprises for beauty… A certain power of
enduring boredom is therefore essential to a happy life, and is one of the things
that ought to be taught to the young.”
“A generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men
unduly divorced from nature, of men in whom every vital impulse slowly withers, as
though they we’re cut flowers in a vase.”
Boredom is beneficial to humans. Some of the joys of solitude is that it helps one reflect on things, allows you daydream – positive daydreaming – without which there will be no creativity, another joy of solitude or boredom is that it brings ideas that can change your life for better. Isaac Newton was alone, engaging in some thinking time – alone time – under an Apple tree. An apple fell to the ground and this act caused him to ask questions which led to his discovery of Law of Gravity.
“So during those first moments of the day, which are yours and yours alone, you can circumvent these boundaries and concentrate fully on spiritual matters. And this gives you the opportunity to plan the time management of the entire day.”
Bear in mind also, that just as sleep is the state of relaxation for the body, boredom is also the state of mental relaxation. So, the next time you think of been alone, instead of making plans to escape the boredom, walk into it – open your mind and enjoy yourself by yourself. You never can tell the life changing idea that might creep in