Turn Off, Tune Out, Get Bored.

December 23, 2015 7:40 AM

In Praise of Boredom by the creative Adrian Shaughnessy, a graphic designer and writer based in London, is a thought-provoking look at the link between creativity, reflection, and boredom. Shaughnessy is a senior tutor in Visual Communication at the Royal College of Art and a founding partner in Unit Editions a publishing company producing books on design and visual culture.
posted by spock (16 comments total)

I've been thinking about this very connection myself.....
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 7:47 AM on December 23, 2015

"In praise of boredom" yields 11K Google hits, including an article by that title I read just a few months ago in Harper's. And in Lapham's Quarterly (via this morning's Arts and Letters Daily) a long article details all of the centuries of Big Thinkers complaining about information overload, concluding--without any detail at all--that the real problem lies in our lack of capacity for self-reflection.

Without veering too closely to parroting the now over-merchandised "mindfulness" platitudinous stew, it is impossible for me to avoid agreeing with all of these current writers: we need to be more aware of what's going on in the world and in our own bodies and minds and less obsessed with escaping the simple acts of noticing and reflecting by seeking constant distraction. I guess boredom can be either the cause or the effect of ceasing the process of self-distraction...I don't think boredom is a very useful word, personally, because of its negative connotations, but I suppose the shock value of the word accounts for its popping up so often these days.

It is also impossible for me to avoid re-posting what has become one of Blaise Pascal's most famous quotes: "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."
posted by kozad at 8:10 AM on December 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

What should you do to help your child pursue her dreams of becoming a writer?

First of all, let her be bored. Let her have long afternoons with absolutely nothing to do. Limit her TV-watching time and her internet-playing time and take away her cell phone. Give her a whole summer of lazy mornings and dreamy afternoons. Make sure she has a library card and a comfy corner where she can curl up with a book.

Give her a notebook and five bucks so she can pick out a great pen. Insist she spend time with the family. It's even better if this time is spent in another state, a cabin in the woods, a cottage on the lake, far from her friends and people her own age. Give her some tedious chores to do. Make her mow the lawn, do the dishes by hand, paint the garage. Make her go on long walks with you and tell her you just want to listen to the sounds of the neighborhood...

by Molly Backes - The rest is here
posted by pretentious illiterate at 8:23 AM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

“Hear this or not, as you will. Learn it now, or later — the world has time. Routine, repetition, tedium, monotony, ephemeracy, inconsequence, abstraction, disorder, boredom, angst, ennui — these are the true hero’s enemies, and make no mistake, they are fearsome indeed. For they are real.”
― David Foster Wallace, The Pale King
posted by Harvey Jerkwater at 8:37 AM on December 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

This subject interests me because I have thought about the connection between boredom and creativity since I was a kid in the 60s and 70s. My evolved view is that if someone says they "are bored" then that is the sign of a lazy mind. "Boredom" led me to invent new games driven by randomizers like a shuffled deck of cards or the roll of dice. It led me to cultivate the ability to draw and to love reading. My problem is not in being bored, it is being interested in too many things. I collect hobbies. I'm interested in everything in the universe, on a rotating basis. My problem is in bringing projects to completion.
posted by spock at 9:03 AM on December 23, 2015 [2 favorites]

I do like the fact that young people on transit are more inclined to sit with phones, playing games or conversing with friends than they are to sit glumly, glaring at each other.
posted by bonobothegreat at 9:22 AM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I have the same problem as Spock. Where do you think I got this username? It gets bad enough that I can't stick with a project now for more than a couple days before something else looks interesting.

The thing the article mentions about the Internet, though, feels misleading or at least not quite the real problem. You might as well blame playing cards for people with nothing else to do filling their time playing solitaire instead of quiet self-reflection. It's not the fault of smartphones that some people have a different base level of stimulation than others.
posted by wanderingmind at 9:24 AM on December 23, 2015

When I learned to tune into curiosity, boredom receded. A moment is never nothing because there's always something to be curious about, even something as simple as breathing.

Now, if I could only remember that all the time and if I could only find a way to convey that to my son.
posted by kokaku at 9:39 AM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

More than half of my paying writing jobs have been from being bored, poking around online, and finding something that caught my eye as the start of something.
posted by The Whelk at 9:50 AM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I think that the proper referent is "alienation" rather than "boredom".
posted by Chitownfats at 10:33 AM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

This is a 2016 goal for me. I think its really important to be aware of the world around you, but you also need time to let those things germinate and bounce around in peace for a while.
posted by lownote at 11:51 AM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

"Boredom" led me...

Was it 'boredom' that led you, or was it your dissatisfaction with your situation that led you, and boredom was merely a state that amplified it? I'm not trying to be pedantic by asking that.

Boredom's value rests solely on what one does to escape it. Promoting boredom as a destination is not that useful to promote creativity and contemplation unless one arrives there with the understanding that it is not a "prison sentence to wait out." Escaping boredom should be seen as a skill, not unlike learning how to swim - we may be able to keep afloat by instinct, but the skills to swim well must be either learned or taught. In the same manner, we must be either taught or figure out on our own how to recognize the tools to escape boredom, both in our surroundings and inside our minds. Such skills are best learned and encouraged as early as possible for best effect, and tie in with so many other skills, like observation and problem solving. I don't have kids, so I'm not up to date on the current trends, but I don't recall ever hearing much about the value of taking advantage of those moments as a valuable opportunity to teach those skills. It seems far more common for parents to offer up suggestions of things to do in hopes of triggering an interest (the push random buttons approach), rather than present the situation to them as a puzzle for to solve. Perhaps because boredom is a temporary state, it is not often seen as an opportunity to foster skills that appear unrelated at first glance.

Of course, when left to figure out how to escape boredom entirely on their own, some children do better than others. More often than not, how well they handle the situation seems to primarily be used as evidence to support a diagnosis that looks for good "such a creative child" or bad "frustrated/problematic/lazy" behavior. To return to the swimming analogy, how bizarre would it seem for people to say things like "my kid keeps almost drowning, this could mean a brain/muscle disorder, maybe they just aren't trying, or should I keep them away from anything deeper than a bathtub?" or "this kid's got natural talent, how lucky we are to have such a gifted child"? How they deal with boredom is not some isolated test showing how well they are doing in other areas, but one just as important, if not more so in some cases, as any other skill.

I'm not as worried as some are about "inexhaustible supply of stimulation" presented by the internet. While it should be something to be concerned about, its positive or negative effects depend entirely on how its being used. If anything, it increases the importance of teaching/supporting/cultivating those interests and skills as early as possible. Boredom, and all the things that go with how to best address it, is just as important to developing a child's creative and inquisitive mind as the near-inexhaustible warehouse of knowledge of the internet is. Obviously the internet (and with that video games and social apps as well) have their dangers, distractions and problems too, but like anything else, with every new danger proclaimed, an unexpected benefit is also found which gets a lot less press*. I think that offhand claims that the internet as an overall negative influence on development is an unfair and as yet unfounded judgement, that's made more difficult due to applying standards from a pre-internet era to a significantly different present situation, and doing so makes it seem more of a problem than it really is. I prefer to put my faith n the human brain's ability to adapt, and what we may think is "too much to handle" is based on our experience in the past and by those standards make the present state seem "not normal." The internet that we might see as increasingly overwhelming is simply 'baseline normal' to the very young. It clouds both our perception of the issue and significantly colors (and perhaps even hinder in the short term) how we research and analyze the internet's positive and negative effects on cognitive development. It's not like humans didn't go through this sort of thing before when a new technology brought a significant change to their world, and concerns were raised on its effects on the young, for example the printing press, and later on, the drive for basic education of the masses. We adapt. Its what we do. As long as we continue to work on the best ways to encourage the skills that foster curiosity, observation, socialization, and thinking critically, there is little to worry about.

* articles and papers linked admittedly cherry-picked in a rather hasty manner to show positive aspects of internet use. YMMV.
posted by chambers at 12:51 PM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

Was it 'boredom' that led you, or was it your dissatisfaction with your situation that led you, and boredom was merely a state that amplified it?

There is a reason I put the word in quotes.

Escaping boredom should be seen as a skill, not unlike learning how to swim - we may be able to keep afloat by instinct, but the skills to swim well must be either learned or taught. In the same manner, we must be either taught or figure out on our own how to recognize the tools to escape boredom, both in our surroundings and inside our minds. Such skills are best learned and encouraged as early as possible for best effect, and tie in with so many other skills, like observation and problem solving.

Well-put and I agree. Or is it because I agree?
posted by spock at 4:41 PM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

Sitting on a crowded train the other day, I saw something surprising. A young woman was sitting quietly staring out of the window. Why was this surprising? It was surprising because she was the only person not absorbed in a smart phone, tablet or laptop; she was the only person doing nothing.

I think that "doing nothing" is very, very different from "being bored".

In an essay called "Is Google Making Us Stupid?" Nicholas Carr writes that the Internet is “chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.”

First, perhaps Nicholas should check the color of the ink in his pen, it seems to be writing in purple. Second, if the thinks this is bad, which it may well be, perhaps he should stop accessing things on the "Net" which dribble content to him in eight word chunks or the like.

...

I remember being bored as a child, and I remember it being awful. I don't remember it having redeeming qualities that pushed me toward artistic or authorial creativity. As far as I recall, its typical cause wasn't that I was small-minded and Internet-afflicted and couldn't think of anything to do; it was usually because I was being subjected to a boring setting/situation by adults and I didn't know a priori that it was going to happen, so I didn't bring a book or a notebook or some blank paper or the like in order to avoid it.
posted by Juffo-Wup at 6:37 PM on December 23, 2015 [1 favorite]

I remember being bored as a child, and I remember it being awful. I don't remember it having redeeming qualities that pushed me toward artistic or authorial creativity.

I know, isn't it weird to hear all this praise for boredom when you remember it was such an awful experience. I wonder if perhaps the problem here is people using "boredom" to mean completely different experiences and the word is simply not the right one to describe them all?

Like, that quote about helping a child "pursue her dreams of becoming a writer" - I get the point and the part from "let her be bored" and give her enough to read and write and "curl up with a book" makes sense, all sounds good and reasonable. But the part about enforcing isolation, "in another state, a cabin in the woods, a cottage on the lake, far from her friends and people her own age"? I don't know, that's a bit of a riskier proposition... Potentially one of those childhood memories less likely to be filed under "things that helped me become more creative and imaginative as a child yay me and my wonderful parents", and more like "things I hated my parents for when I was a kid and still resent them for years later and don't get me started on the money I spent on therapy".

Seriously though - Shaughnessy's article makes a lot of distinctions and good points - but maybe there is a better, less negative word to describe "periods of inertia and inactivity" that serve as "tiny refuges from ceaseless activity and constant stimulation" and foster "the art of self-reflection" and help you to take decisions and change your life etc.?

The ancient Romans had the concept of "otium". There is a whole tradition in literature and philosophy of praising that sort of leisure time of beneficial value for creativity. The overabundance of information and stimuli in our age may well be unprecedented, but the concept of creative idle time is not.

I don't know what would be the better word for it today though. Maybe "leisure" sounds too old or too elitist, like something only the aristocracy would do? Or like too much fun, not enough effort, not enough pain... too close to laziness and indulgence? Why should any of that be any worse than "boredom"?
posted by bitteschoen at 7:06 AM on December 24, 2015 [2 favorites]

I remember being bored as a child, and I remember it being awful. I don't remember it having redeeming qualities that pushed me toward artistic or authorial creativity.

I certainly recall feeling that way at times as well. Though I remember a conversation I had with a relative of mine when I was somewhere between the ages of 6-8 that ended up changing how I handled boredom, and is at the root of my earlier comment. I was wandering around the house, frustrated and bored, and I could think of nothing that sparked my interest. Suggestions were offered to me but I rejected them, and in retrospect, I think it was partly because I had already considered most of them, and partly out of defiance, as the suggestions adults gave me seemed to transform them into an assignment, like being told to do a household chore, and it momentarily took the appeal out of something I usually liked to do.

Then another relative of mine, began asking me about "The Great Escape," which we had watched the other day, which I always enjoyed when it was on. He asked me about Hills and Ives in 'the cooler,' and what was different about how the two of them handled being stuck there. "What did Hilts do that kept him from going crazy like Ives did?" It wasn't just the baseball, since we both agreed that neither of us could find bouncing a ball on the wall entertaining for a whole hour, not to mention a month or more. "So what was it? What did he think about? Is the cooler really all that different from being stuck in a prison camp in general, only one is slightly larger than the other? You've tried being like Ives, and its got you nowhere. Why not try being like Hilts?"

And that did it. I had something to figure out - my escape from boredom - and a way to look at it. I first tried bouncing a baseball against the wall for a while, thinking copying what Hilts did was the key, but that sparked no insight, but not long into my reenactment I started thinking about the movie and WWII, and got me pulling out encyclopedias and books to answer whatever questions I had in my head. Hours of reading later that I suddenly realized I was no longer bored. The following times I was bored, I tried it again and was successful each time finding a completely different thing that sparked my interest. It wasn't until a few years later I started to realize why it worked.

It's not until now that I realize how significant that conversation was in making me who I am.
posted by chambers at 10:14 AM on December 24, 2015 [1 favorite]