Boredom and its Discontents

[Salomé]

I think I actually understood what Victor said this time.

I'm so proud of myself.

But did you agree with it?

Boredom = self-hate?
Boredom = anger?

 

[substitute]

But did you agree with it?

Boredom = self-hate?
Boredom = anger?

I understood too

I dunno if there's a place for agreeing or disagreeing with it since he seemed to be talking about his own subjective experience, which of course nobody has greater authority about than he himself. I can say though that I don't relate to it, on thinking about it I can't find any correlation with my own experience.

Frustration perhaps, but not either of those two. Frustrated that my current situation isn't allowing opportunities for the things I need to feel content or satisfied, but though frustration and anger can be linked, in this case with me I don't think they are; they're quite distinct. The frustration comes only after my initial response of trying to FIND opportunities has exhausted itself and hit a brick wall. When i run out of things I can do about it but simply wait and see, I get frustrated.

 

[Jeffster]

We live in different worlds. In my world it is ludicrous to say that you are your own authority.

Science teaches us the limitation of our own authority. And our authority about ourselves is tiny. We are all prone to massive self deception and our individual observations are wildly wrong. You can see this in any science you care to name.

Aha! Spoken like a true Sensor. Welcome back.

 

[FFF]

I see where you're coming from, but I don't know if that's true. 10 things can become boring as easily as 2.

I'm pretty sure I'm an introvert but I have a high capacity for boredom. I think the things that bore introverts and extroverts may well be different though. Introverts tend to have a more intense focus on fewer things and are less easily distracted. Extroverts seem to need more variety.

I'm now a bigger fan of the Big Five, and it's actually the excitement seeking component of extroversion that probably matters most. As I mentioned before, each trait has six subfactors, and it is possible to be moderate to high in one while being low on the others. So that means some introverts, like yourself, might be moderate to high in excitement seeking, while retaining the other elements of introversion. One day I might do a series on each big five trait and everything I think is important about each one by drawing from three different authors. I'm a P type (low in most factors of conscientiousness), so it's going to have to happen when I feel like it.

 

[Mole]

Aha! Spoken like a true Sensor. Welcome back.

Good on you, mate!

 

[ZiL]

Sounds like existential ennui to me.
I don't know what the answer is...it's the curse of our generation.
How to find meaning in a world that makes no sense?

Yeah, when I first learned the word "ennui" I thought, "finally, the perfect description...." And that was in 10th grade, lol! Four or so years later I'm saying the same thing. I like options, but it in our day and age it seems there are so many options (some more realistic than others but all theoretically possible) that it's nigh on impossible to make it through a lifetime without having 3 or 4 existential freak-outs. I'm always worried that what I'm doing now really isn't applicable to what I should be doing. It's a phantom suspicion that haunts you wherever you go.

Yet again, you're right inside my head!!

Things I do need to have meaning, I need to see and feel where they fit into a bigger picture, how they enable progress towards a meaningful goal not just for my life but sorta making a difference in the world, leaving a legacy if you will. If I can't see this, then whatever I do, however superficially exciting - I'm bored, because it seems pointless to me.

I think this could be one reason why I could never do the career in paid employment thing... I've been successful at self-employment because I could determine my own 'promotional ladder' as it were... but I could never do entry level stuff for long. For a while I was for example, photocopying the service sheets for my local church - a dull, routine, unchallenging and boring task. But I was able to do it for a while quite happily, only by reminding myself about how it fitted into the whole, how it enabled bigger things to happen that I believed in. Once I questioned those things though and couldn't believe they were happening any more, my work felt pointless and I just couldn't bear to do it, I'd come home at the end of a working morning and feel really profoundly depressed - as I say it had taken all my persuasion skills turned onto myself to keep doing it anyway, but once the meaning was lost I just couldn't do it a second longer and just quit without notice.

I've had the same thing with jobs... I could go in at entry level and sustain interest as long as I believed a) the job I was currently doing was an important tile in a bigger mosaic that I believed in and was happy to help with enabling its continuing existence and b) it was a necessary step in a direction I wanted to go in and would enable progress for me in that direction. As soon as I had reason to question those points, the job became intolerable.

AMEN.

I don't have a hard time finding hobbies or things to keep myself busy with, but if I'm lacking some larger picture to fit it all in with - if the activity doesn't feel secure within some system of purpose - it feels empty.

Which is why I'm terrified of the impending job searches, lol.

 

[Kyrielle]

Jack makes perfect sense. But all you can do is insult him and me in order to take control.

I don't mind you insulting Jack or myself, but I don't want you taking control.

For your instinct is to stifle a living breathing thread.

Well, it is technically her thread. I mean she did, after all, start it. I don't think it is asking terribly much or being controlling at all to want one's own thread to get back on topic or at least get back to being relevant, which it is not at present.

In an attempt to remedy the situation:

Is boredom more rampant in society now compared to the past? Is it because we have made activities a little too convenient?

 

[Jack Flak]

Well, it is technically her thread. I mean she did, after all, start it.

Is this a blog? TBH, staying OT is "all well and good," but there have been countless extremely interesting conversations here which had basically nothing to do with the thread title, or OP. It's quite the cure for boredom.

 

[Ivy]

Moved a bunch of posts here.

 

[alcea rosea]

Boredom is usually a cover for another emotion. For instance, when I say I am bored, what I mean is, I am angry.

But really I am not owning my own anger and blaming someone else instead. So I will say, you are boring, rather than I am angry at this particular thing.

If I could admit my anger to myself, my boredom would disappear.

But my conscience or superego tells me that anger is bad, so I try and hide it behind boredom and blaming.

So I am playing hide and seek with my anger to placate my superego.

But the funny thing is that when I can say, I am angry at this particular thing, my anger transforms into exuberance.

And this is true of all emotions - when we allow ourselves to feel them, they transform into something else. So when we allow ourselves to feel, we are constantly flowing emotion, like a constantly bubbling fountain of feeling. I think they call it, being alive.

But my superego stops me being alive.

How I hate my superego.

Intersting thoughts.

I'm bored when I have nothing interesting to do. When I'm bored, I'm not trying to hide my anger because when I'm angry, you'll see it (and I know it) and I feel it and it's really showing. I cannot hide my emotions.

I think I should be doing interesting stuff all the time, I should be moving from place to place, I should be seeing new people and then I wouldn't be bored (but eventually I would be very tired of interested things).

 

[Salomé]

Is boredom more rampant in society now compared to the past? Is it because we have made activities a little too convenient?

I don't know how one would measure that.
We do tend to value less those things that come too easily.

I think I should be doing interesting stuff all the time, I should be moving from place to place, I should be seeing new people and then I wouldn't be bored (but eventually I would be very tired of interested things).

So you recognize the difference between distracting yourself from boredom and resolving the crisis? Or are you saying that all routine inevitably leads to boredom?

 

[falling2fast]

I think a few different laws of nature come into play here. If we are not growing, then we are dying. The more we learn, the more we are able to learn. An object at rest stays at rest until some force acts upon it.

Putting these things together:

People tent to need some form of motivation to act. When we lose motivation, our minds tend to stagnate. When our brains realize the lack of motivation, it alerts us in the form of feeling unstimulated or unmotivated to concentrate. I believe that the amount of boredom one experiences is related to how stimuli are organized in the brain. For example, as mentioned above, some people tend to always have some inputs readily available to analyze or mentally catalog. In many ways, what we value affects how bored we feel. More imaginative people may have more to preoccupy their minds; whereas more here-and-now people may find less stimuli to feed a hungry mind. Although, for the sensing people, their mental alertness would probably count for a lot.

 

[alcea rosea]

So you recognize the difference between distracting yourself from boredom and resolving the crisis? Or are you saying that all routine inevitably leads to boredom?

I'm really saying that. So, in my case, routine inevitably leads to boredom.

 

[fleurdujour]

Since I am strong J am almost never bored. In case that there is nothing to do I can always turn to my inner world and things I am interested in.

Many people think that I am bored to the death in my life since I am very introverted but the truth is totally oppostite.

I mean, it is hard to be bored if you can isolate yourself from others for 3 months and be totally OK with it. (this is how I used to spent my summertimes)

I'm a relatively strong J as well and was almost never bored, but lately am feeling quite bored (but at the same time feeling as though there is never enough time to do everything I want to do--typical J thing). I'm guessing I'm feeling so bored at this point though because I'm feeling pretty disillusioned with my life (lack of fulfillment) and am also currently surrounded by very S things, which is killing my N (and the S mundane, detail-oriented stuff is boring the hell out of me).

 

[placebo]

I recently read an interesting essay by Adam Phillips, "On Being Bored".
It made me wonder how boredom might relate to type. Do you think boredom is a symptom of poverty of imagination? Of inactivity? Or frustration with reality?
Are you bored often? Are you more bored by having a lot of (boring) stuff to do, or not enough? How does it manifest itself? And how do you overcome it - do you use distraction techniques? Or do you focus on deeper issues?

Does boredom serve a purpose, like depression - can it make us question the pattern and progress of our lives to-date?
Does it make us shake ourselves out of a rut? What other purpose might it serve?

Yes I think boredom is a lack of imagination, creativity, an ability to change perspectives mentally and create your own opportunities. It does seem to me, if it is a persistant feeling, an indication of depression of some sort. Consistent feelings of boredom will eventually lead to depression. When I feel a hint of it I am encouraged to find interest in something and usually it works.

Usually I get bored with the outside world, e.g. if I'm stuck in some situation I can't escape for the time being. If I let myself admit I'm bored, it only makes the situation worse. So I either escape inwards and find something interesting within my mind, or see if there's anything I can focus on externally that's more interesting than the current situation. Sometimes you may see me staring intently at a light fixture as a result.

I think it's a great push, to avoid boredom, ennui, but to fall into it is dreadful.