David Murdock Column: On boredom and its consequences
Over the last several years, I’ve increasingly become interested in “concepts” — that’s the only way I can think of to express it. I’m not talking about anything grand like “the meaning of life.” Just simple little notions. Simple, right! So I thought, until I delved deeper into some of them. It all started when I wanted to know more about “creativity.” What exactly does it mean to be “creative?”
It turns out that there’s basically a whole field of psychology investigating the concept of creativity. There are many, many books on the subject. I’ve read about two dozen of them at this point, and I’m not sure I know any more than when I started.
It’s been the same with several concepts like that; I won’t even get started down the rabbit hole that is “virtue,” for example. There’s a whole field of philosophy working on that one, in addition to psychology and, of course, all the major world religions. I knew I was in trouble when I started ordering books about particular virtues — like prudence, temperance, fortitude and justice.
The latest one has been the oddest: boredom. Imagine my surprise when I found out that there are scholars working on the concept of boredom. It turns out boredom is sort of important — I’m up to seven books on it. And … it also turns out that boredom, in one form or the other, has been discussed for centuries now.
The gist of what’s going on in “boredom studies” right now is this: Most experts in boredom — there’s a phrase I never thought I’d write — seem to believe that we’re not bored enough these days. Of course, they blame our technology. It’s nigh impossible to be bored nowadays when we have smartphones.
They’ve got a point — I certainly use my smartphone too much. The French philosopher Blaise Pascal wrote, “All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” He wrote that line in the 17th century! I quote that line over and over because I know it to be true — I’m not sure I could. Haven’t even tried in a long time.
In fact, I’ve never really been bored for more than just a few minutes. I’ve certainly never experienced any of the deep, almost debilitating existential boredom described by some of the scholars I’ve read. Sure, I’ve said “I’m bored,” but there has always been something for me to do, and it took no more than a few minutes to find it.
The reason these scholars are so worried that we’re not bored enough is that the general feeling is that achievement springs from boredom, particularly creativity. That just about doubled me with laughter.
Another point they make is that we spend so much time distracting ourselves that we never really have any leisure. (Just starting to read about “leisure,” by the way — yes, there are scholars working on that, too!) That sounded silly until I thought about how much planning we do to fill our off-time with activities. We never really just “rest” anymore.
Being bored isn’t really an issue for me, but I think I am becoming boring. It struck me this morning that the journal entry I was writing could have been written anytime over the past year — I was basically talking about the same things. When I realized it, I wrote “yadda, yadda, yadda.” No, that phrase was not invented by the sitcom “Seinfeld.” My generation was saying it long before it appeared there, and generations before us were saying it still longer ago.
There I was, griping in my own journal about a “Seinfeld” episode from nearly 25 years ago!
Then, the thought popped into my head — the horrifying thought — that I’ve never had a truly original thought in my whole life. And I’m sure that if I looked around, someone else has thought the exact same thing.
Can one force oneself to become bored?
That thought makes me realize how ridiculous I sound, worrying about not being bored enough to be creative. How ridiculous I sound — I’ve thought that one before, too.
It’s not like I have issues with creativity, after all. I don’t experience what Dr. James C. Kaufman and Dr. Ronald Beghetto refer to as “Big-C” creativity — the level of Einstein, da Vinci, Shakespeare — but I do experience some of the other types of creativity they describe. Most people do. In fact, everyone I know has, in some way, experienced at least two of their theorized levels of creativity.
What if Kaufman and Beghetto aren’t entirely correct, though? What if there are more than the four types of creativity they describe? In fact, I’m sort of bored with seeing this “Four C Model of Creativity” everywhere … oh. So that’s how it works, is it?
Now, I’m not bored enough to earn the requisite academic degrees and credentials to do serious work in the field of boredom studies, but I will say this thing: Just because something is written down doesn’t make it true. On the internet, certainly, but in books, too. At least, that’s been my experience. I am evidently bored enough to keep reading, though.
David Murdock is an English instructor at Gadsden State Community College. He can be contacted at murdockcolumn@yahoo.com. The opinions expressed are his own.
This article originally appeared on The Gadsden Times: David Murdock looks at boredom
