Boredom is a state of mind—and a fact of life. I have had my share of it (usually when there’s not enough to do at work) and of course that’s a word-exploration opportunity. Because we have such a complicated relationship with it, there is a fair amount of research and writing about it, so I’ve pulled out a few tidbits I find interesting. (These days, we’re not even sure if it’s good or bad, because our tech habits keep us from realizing that we’re not doing anything meaningful.)
- Bored: feeling weary because one is unoccupied or lacks interest in one’s current activity.
- Boredom: the state of being bored.
The Word
The earliest known use of the word boredom is from the 1820s, but it wasn’t exactly a new concept. I imagine as soon as humans had time that wasn’t 100% spent worrying about survival, we discovered boredom. As for the English word: it’s commonly said that it does relate to “bore” as in “making a hole.” It was around the 1760s when the idea of “gradually making a hole” was applied to a dull, tiresome thing and then person. Other, older words in other European languages often were attached to more specific situations.
Fun fact: according to the Oxford English Dictionary, usage of word “boredom” is about three times per million words in modern written English.
The Meaning
Boredom has always been understood as a problem for people who have too much time on their hands—and for the U.S., it makes sense to me that the word was needed as the nation settled into itself. Boredom came with a moral judgment, especially for a young nation that placed such high value on industriousness. People doing work might find it tedious, but for someone to actually be in a state of boredom required leisure. So boredom was associated with idleness, and therefore a moral failing.
Interesting note from a podcast/article: “So the ancient Greeks had a word ‘acedia,’ which meant listlessness, and early Christians applied it to monks, who went out into the desert, lived alone, and got struck with a melancholy that made them falter in their devotion to God,” Susan Matt, author of Bored, Lonely, Angry, Stupid. She considers that the origin of the connection between boredom and sin.
The Issue
Boredom comes when we don’t feel engaged in what we’re doing. In our complicated relationship with boredom, we seem to get tangled up in the psychology of work, entertainment, and leisure. At work, “anti-boredom” sometimes surfaces as a demand for “passion.” (Personally, it’s more than good enough to find work satisfying and rewarding. Being paid for passion is something else entirely.) In entertainment, it demands “thrills,” whether that’s adrenaline or emotion. And our modern understanding of boredom has led us to conflate being quiet with being dull, so that we expect our leisure hours to be filled with “doing.” (No one has ever asked me what I thought about over the weekend…)
As a related side-note, PNC Bank’s current marketing is built around “boring banking” being a good thing. We instantly know that they mean “reliable and predictable.” It’s telling, isn’t it? Why is that conflation so automatic?
Nobody likes to be bored, obviously. In fact, a recent study concluded that when people are bored, they will seek any change (positive or negative) just to break the monotony. But from the same article quoted earlier: “According to John Eastwood, a Psychology professor at York University who also runs the Boredom Lab, it’s important to differentiate boredom and being in a state without stimulation.” Yes indeed.
Boredom is worth avoiding, because it makes holes in our minds—but seeking stimulation isn’t the only way to protect ourselves. That’s the external solution and it’s why we turn to our screens so quickly. We fill the holes with distractions.
For my nickel, spending time in “a state without stimulation” is another solution, and it’s critical for mental well-being, emotional balance, and creativity. We need that time to let previous stimulation turn into thoughts and feelings. All our passionate, thrilling activity needs to sink in so that we renew our inner resources. That’s the process of turning life into meaning. The inner resources we derive from all our doing provide the internal solution to boredom. Instead of filling holes, we can build mental infrastructure to keep them from forming.
Bonus: Several languages have a closer connection between “do” and “think” than modern English does. As one example, take the ancient Greek verb ποιεῖν (poiein). It means “to make, to do,” but it also has a flavor of “to compose, to imagine.” It’s the root of the word poetry (ποίησις = “a making”), which is an interesting blend of doing and thinking.
Further reading:
- https://www.freethink.com/culture/history-of-boredom
- https://boredomlab.org
- https://www.futurity.org/boredom-motivation-experience-3295012-2
Photo by Gabriel Ramos on Unsplash
