“Boredom is an insult to life.”
That’s what author and lyricist Paulo Coelho said of the state of being that is not fully understood, but that does seemingly have a peculiar appeal to nearly all of us.
Leo Tolstoy had these thoughts on the subject: “Boredom: the desire for desires.”
Now, forgive my criticism here, but one does indeed get close to the true meaning of boredom when trudging through the seemingly eternal, interlocking narratives following the five Russian aristocratic families in War and Peace.
Literary criticism aside, the issue of boredom, what it is and why it’s a prominent subject, is a serious object of study. And it’s one that I was refreshed to see tackled deftly in a new article at Skeptic.com, aptly titled, “Boredom.”
The article, expertly written and researched by Nicolas Lynch, explores the concept of boredom, its various forms and its current social varieties. Here, Lynch gives us his take on boredom, which curiously is that we are not actually bored, but rather, suffering from other related afflictions:
But the [boredom] crisis is misdiagnosed. The opinion that “work sucks” or that there’s “nothing good on Netflix” is not boredom. It is frustration, it is aggravation, it is restless dissatisfaction, it is the aching weight of unmet expectation. It is all of these things and more — but above all, it is the mistake of defining boredom by how it makes us feel, rather than by what it truly is: confusing the symptoms with the illness, like mistaking a fever for the infection itself.
Americans today feel more anxious, more adrift and more unhappy. We are also — never bored.
I admit that this is an interesting take on the boredom issue. In fact, I have said many times that when someone says they are bored, it’s usually because that person is just boring.
I mean, I seriously do not understand how one can truly be bored in a world filled with so much wonder, so many unanswered questions, so much to learn, so much to see, so much to achieve, so many experiences to live and so much pleasure to tap.
Yes, if you’ve drawn the conclusion that I am an optimistic chap who rarely suffers from ennui and who is inclined toward the love of life, you are spot on. Yet, even I can be, as Lynch puts it, “anxious, adrift and unhappy.”
The Lynch article goes into depth on defining boredom, both biological and cultural. It then goes into some of the Darwinian explanations for boredom and the evolutionary advantages that an associated search for novelty provides. It also goes into the human need for stress and anxiety as necessary for our very survival as a species:
The root of today’s suffering is that we are operating on an inherited psychological system where the most stable evolutionary strategy is a life filled with stress and anxiety, and so no matter what the outside conditions (i.e., full belly, empty belly, rich, poor, etc.), the inside machinery will always adjust the experience meter back toward unbearable static. It is the reason why zoo animals, spared from hunger and fear, pace endlessly, gnaw at their own limbs or pluck themselves bald in fits of unseen agony. It is their brains demanding a stress that no longer exists.
Perhaps the more interesting element of this issue has to do with the abundance that we all enjoy in 21st-century America, and the lack of really serious things to worry about. Here’s how Lynch explains it:
In a society where we have nothing (no predators, no famine, no war) to torment us, nothing itself becomes the torment. In other words, leisure curdles into boredom — a hell so unbearable that international law recognizes it as a torture device (i.e., solitary confinement) and NASA assigns its astronauts busywork to safeguard against it.
The article goes on to explore the issue of boredom and tedious work as being rather crucial to progress. Lynch serves up the example of the Wright brothers, who spent years documenting and analyzing data, conducting experiments and trudging through tedium before they figured out flight. So here, the “boring” work netted anything but boring results.
One critical thing to understand here is that the “boredom” associated with hard work, grueling mental and/or physical effort and the simple anxiety of not knowing the answer immediately yet persisting toward knowledge is almost impossible without the benefit of a compelling purpose. Here is how Lynch puts it:
In order to endure boredom, one must have a purpose — but in order to discover that purpose, one must first endure boredom. Put another way, the precondition for meaning is the willingness to be with its absence — because it arrives not when we want it, but instead appears when there’s nothing left to distract us.
I can attest to the truth of this proposition in my own life, as finding the best stocks to recommend to readers is often an exercise in the difficulty and drudgery of sifting through multiple data points, reading annual reports, analyzing chart patterns and conducting the appropriate due diligence. While the result of these efforts can be both exhilarating and exhilaratingly profitable, there is no doubt one must employ discipline and a whole lot of mental effort to get to these winning decisions.
Yes, I admittedly “love the doing,” but the doing is usually extremely tough. Indeed, it reminds me of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s proclamation that “easy reading is damn hard writing.” To bring anything good, valuable and beautiful into the world requires that one have a strong sense of productive purpose born of a rigorous search for truth, meaning and achievement.
Lynch finishes the Boredom article, one that I strongly recommend reading, with a suggestion of sorts on the immense value of what embracing a certain sense of boredom can bring. I will close here with the following, nutrient-rich food for thought:
We think we’re escaping boredom by filling every silence, every pause, every flicker of inconvenience. But it’s the other way around. What we’re escaping is everything else — depth, clarity, attention, the work of tolerating discomfort. We were wired to find the world insufficient — but the system is flooded, and the thresholds are shot, and so the old machinery pings around, locked in a loop of false signals, burning the energy meant for effort on a feast of glittering garbage.
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Cut Flowers in a Vase
“[A] generation that cannot endure boredom will be a generation of little men, of men unduly divorced from the slow process of nature, of men in whom every vital impulse slowly withers as though they were cut flowers in a vase.”
–Bertrand Russell
The philosopher brilliantly elucidates this aspect of boredom, likening the failure to embrace the state as a slow wither of cut flowers in a vase. It also makes a compelling argument for never permitting your stems to be severed.
Wisdom about money, investing and life can be found anywhere. If you have a good quote that you’d like me to share with your fellow readers, send it to me, along with any comments, questions and suggestions you have about my newsletters, seminars or anything else. Click here to ask Jim.
In the name of the best within us,
Jim Woods
