Fascinated by boredom

[Jirh]

As children, we don’t inherently know what “boredom” means. A rock, a shadow, a repeating sound—these are endlessly fascinating things by sheer existence. What are they anyway?!

Then comes peer pressure: somewhere around preschool, a friend or someone of “higher authority” sighs loudly and announces: “This is boring 😑”. The group nods. Suddenly, our own stillness feels shameful. Not only is this experience labelled “boring”, but somehow, magically even, boring becomes bad.

We learn that uninterrupted attention is a social mistake. We learn that constant stimulation equals joy and excitement. We label and judge flat experiences to be unworthy of experiencing. We learn to flee and run away from thinking about staying still. To fit in, we perform boredom—slumping shoulders, heavy sighs, a desperate scan for stimulation.

The illusion? That boredom exists outside us, in the world. In truth, it’s a shared agreement: We’ve decided this moment has no value.

By adolescence, the reflex is automatic. Sitting quietly becomes intolerable—not because nothing is happening, but because we’ve forgotten how to witness without judgment. Boredom isn’t the absence of stimulus. It’s the fear of being left out of a more interesting story.

It's incredibly fascinating how all of that is even possible even though at first thought it would seem almost impossible! Like we are literally living in wonderland, and how we forget is part of the wonder!

Cheers!

Edited yesterday at 01:11 PM by Jirh

[Lila9]

This is a beautiful post. I have learned that boredom is about experiencing nothingness. Nothingness is the fertile soil from which our imagination can go wild, from which great creative ideas are emerged. 

[gettoefl]

Boredom is the belief: something is missing, something is lacking, let something here be different.

Peace is the recognition: nothing is missing, nothing is lacking, let everything here be as it is.

The shift is this: I no longer take myself to be someone in lack. I withdraw this meaning I myself added.

I chased excitement for so long that lack became the default. But it was something I always brought to the table.