There was an article in the New York Times about boredom recently. It started with the fact that book reviews rarely use the word “boring”, even if the book in question is, meandered through the history of boredom and contemporary culture’s attitude toward boredom, and concludes with boredom in literature (specifically David Foster Wallace’s new book).
Boredom is something that I’ve thought about quite a lot recently, like within the last year or so. For me, at least, boredom is not a case of having nothing to do – it’s a case of low motivation and not wanting to do what you do have to do, or not being able to decide what to do (a big problem for me right now). Having nothing to do is boring, but you can justifiably fill the time with mindless entertainment or something. For me, boredom has a mild frustration element – of wanting to have nothing to do, of not being able to focus, of not having the panic of deadlines pushing me to finish things.
It’s lack of interest, mostly. Lack of interest in the things on my to-do list. Lack of interest in what’s going on in the world, in my life. When it comes to boring books or movies, lack of interest in what’s going on in the story. It’s not necessarily something inherent in the book or movie, although it might be. What is profoundly uninteresting to me might be fascinating to someone else, and vice versa.
The article brings up some good points about boredom – how it was created by the rise of the middle class, leisure time, and individualism born out of the Industrial Revolution. People pre-Industrial Revolution might have been bored, but not quite in the same way that people post-Industrial Revolution were. The argument, sort of, is that it took the rise of leisure time for people to realize that boredom was a possibility, that you were responsible for filling your own time and that you could enjoy what you did.
One of the references in the article is to a recent study that shows the neurological patterns of a “resting mind” – they analyzed the patterns of people in an fMRI machine who were told to “just relax” and empty their minds. For a lot of people, that is boring – but for me, at least for a while, it would be relaxing. I wouldn’t have to worry that I’m supposed to be doing something else, that I’m missing out on something. Of course, after a while, forced inactivity does become boring – but again, it’s because you can’t stop thinking of the things that you should or could be doing instead.
(I’m not sure if this post is turning out the way that I wanted it to…..I may have to revisit it at some point and rewrite….)
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