Every time, I end up digging layers around the idea of boredom.
I’ve written about rest, about boredom, about stillness. Three attempts yet never caught at the core. So here’s another layer added I believe.
We take in a lot. A conversation that didn’t sit right. A decision made too quickly. Something you read and moved past. Something someone said that you filed under think about this later and never did. The intake is constant and raising with the social media. The processing isn’t (Not therapy, lol)
That gap is the backlog or unfinished business or tabs. There is no enough time given to the mind to close it.
TBH, we’re terrified of it. So we fill every gap of emptiness with podcast, scroll, task or even music (Found Guilty) that feels productive. Not because we’re avoiding rest, but because the moment we stop, the load/hanging thoughts becomes visible. This visibility feels like falling behind or even failing.
This is what I finally understand. Boredom isn’t the pile/load. Boredom is what clears it. A days ago I was in the ground for my morning walk. I forgot to recharge data plans. I couldn’t play the music nor Starva. Nothing to do, quite annoyed about it. But the walk really help me in finding the data points for the solution I needed. Because nothing else (music) was occupying the space, so the hanging thing finished processing on its own. It was nice.
They call it as Default Mode Network (DMN). When you stop directing your attention or energy outward, your brain doesn’t go quiet. It switches to a different mode. More of internal kind of one. The one it uses for replaying memories, working over unresolved things, or wandering or making sense of yourself to yourself.
This one, can’t run that opened tabs and a podcast at the same time. The input/consumption has to stop first. That’s the part we keep skipping. This is why boredom is the specific tool.
Meditation, Stillness and Boredom might sound the same, but it is not. Meditation is directed for doing something to your mind or bringing to one thought or one sound or light or even trying not to think or chew on anything. Stillness is a place you arrive at once the noise/thoughts has already settled.
Boredom is messier as compared to both. It is slightly uncomfortable and the mind wanders without a destination. And that exact thing, under which the backlog/pending ones clear. Through it despite the discomfort it feels.
So you don’t sit idle to become creative. You sit idle so the pile can finish itself. Hence, already half-formed ones finally has the room/space to surface.
Cheers!
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