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Embrace the Boredom

11 points by sciey ↗ HN
Life is often boring. This could be one of the major reasons why social media became so popular. The moment we feel bored, we open social apps. It’s impulsive. We don’t want to be bored, so we begin endless scrolling.

You must have realized that very hollow feeling after this scrolling session. We have a very convenient one-click connection because of phones. I observed these patterns with myself, so I made my choices not to get trapped in this myriad.

I want to talk about embracing the quiet and bored mind. If you are bored, that’s good. We should feel bored. It’s natural and important. We don’t have to do or be busy every hour of the day. Boredom is how you experiment with new things.

These writings and the website are a product of my boredom. I experimented with building my website, and I got one. I wouldn’t have done this if it weren’t for my one dull weekend on a hot summer day.

Stop trying to fill bored minutes with distractions like social media or binge-watching. Go for a walk, try a new coffee shop, break and repair your TV remote, paint, learn car maintenance, write, talk to friends (or punch them, your call), or fight with aliens (in your mind, of course). The possibilities are endless.

Be intentional about how you spend your free time.

https://prashanthi.dev/embrace-the-boredom/

7 comments

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sciey
What have you explored or invented out of boredom?
badpun
For me, boredom and space to think often result in comping up with novel strategies in video games (or otherwise ways to engage with the games I love).
sciey
Interesting. I don't play video games, but I'm curious. Could you give me an example of one of your strategies?
badpun
In the recent years, I've played mostly Magic: the Gathering (drafts) and Civilization V. In MtG, there's plenty of card combinations to try out. You can theoretize about efficiency of particular build in various scenarios, but it's best (and very fun) to verify your theoretical creation in real games. Similarly for Civ V - the game has enough depth built into it that you can approach it very differently (I have around 600 hours logged into it and I'm only now feeling like I've explored most that there is to this game). People who are more meticulous or more detail oriented can probably put a couple thousands hours into the game though, and try out smaller subvariants of strategies that I don't bother trying out.
dsrtslnd23
I somehow never get bored. Did not happen to me yet. I can get excited on-demand just thinking by myself about various topics.