20. The Beauty of Boredom

And figuring out why it's so hard to be okay with being bored.

Getting through February so far has felt like a race towards the finish line. It was sort of like that feeling of holding your breathe underwater for as long as you can until you are forced to come back up for air. This post is supposed to be about embracing boredom, but I definitely did not do enough of that this past month, which is actually the reason why I find myself wanting to write about it. Because it’s been on my mind a lot lately as I’ve been suddenly finding myself in the midst of doing a whole a lot of things while at the same time wishing that I had more time to do the complete opposite. It made me think about how the idea of boredom affects us all. How we all define it so differently. How the way we approach boredom has significantly changed with social media and technology shaping society. How there is no right or wrong balance of boredom that we should have in our life, but navigating what that balance should be for oneself can feel like quite the task. But I do know that boredom is somewhat of a necessity that doesn’t get the recognition it deserves. I personally have noticed how much I truly crave it when I’m at a place where I don’t have it at all. So I’ve been trying to make sense of how I can utilize the act (or non act) of boredom can work for me.

It’s always been so interesting to me how linked boredom and dopamine are. Dopamine is a neurotransmitter that is released in the brain when we experience pleasurable activities. Our bodies constantly crave these dopamine hits because it’s like getting a burst of energy. From what I can see around me, we humans have a pretty dang hard time embracing boredom and it seems to be because our threshold for it has become pretty dang low these days. Easy to see why it is so, as stimulation is so easily accessible this days, especially with social media. As a result, we have unintentionally trained our bodies to get this dopamine from activities like scrolling (brain rotting or doom scrolling, or whatever the heck you want to call it) and taking in quick, small bursts of information and stimulation that provides us with temporary dopamine hits that need to be recovered more and more and at a quicker pace (basically the more you scroll, the more dopamine you get and the more you rely on it with time). Why use our brain energy to get through 300 pages of a book when you can just take in a bunch of information on Instagram with much less energy output? Science has already shown us that this wasn’t how we were meant to use our brains for. But it’s almost near inescapable now, as so much of our day-to-day involves our phones being readily available nearby. And we have become almost reliant on this form of consumption. Our bodies are basically addicted to it. As a result, this makes doing things that are more challenging for the brain to focus on become harder and harder with time.

For example, learning how to play a new instrument or learning a new language. This is something I’ve personally experienced with learning bass and learning to speak Portuguese. These are two things that take a lot of dedication, effort and time commitment in the learning process. As a result of the amount of effort put in, it feels less natural, less easy to digest. Basically the dopamine just doesn’t come as easily as it does as with something that takes less energy, such as an Instagram scroll or binge watching a tv show that you half way pay attention to. We get so used to filling our hours, minutes and seconds with things that keep us from being bored but that don’t actually give us much added value other than easily accessible “entertainment” that tricks us into not feeling bored. In the end, we don’t even get the chance to realize all the amazing things that boredom can actually bring us.

So the next time you think to yourself, “I’m bored”, maybe you can interpret that feeling differently, and transform it into something more positive. I’ve always been more prone to enjoying the beauty of simple and mundane acts, so maybe embracing boredom is just taking this to the next level and making the most of a more quiet time that seems like a rarity these days. Maybe boredom is exactly the break that your brain needs from constantly seeking stimulation and its next dopamine hit.

I’ve had plenty of moments of feeling irritable or frustrated at the feeling of being bored, and it took me some time to accept it for pros. A lot of it had to do with letting go of the pressure to constantly be productive or consuming of something. I had to teach myself that boredom is a medicine of sorts, one that allows my mind roam. Releasing myself from the pressures of actively living has always been the best thing I’ve felt out of boredom, and especially when it’s time spent with myself.

The things that I’ve embraced with boredom:

I’ve learned to love the monotony of washing dishes. No longer a task that I want to get through quickly, full of agitation and annoyance. Today it’s representative of a few minutes of peace and calm, and a sense of happiness that comes with the result of a clean kitchen. To think how many minutes or hours we waste thinking about those dirty dishes all day and feeling annoyed that we have to clean them. When once you start, it’s nothing at all. You just need to view monotony as a sort of escape from all the things that take up too much space in our minds.

Appreciating perspective. My home is full of mirrors, and sometimes I catch glimpses of my home from different perspectives through one mirror or two mirrors. And this brings me a creative peace. Usually in these moments, I can get lost for a few seconds, and I just sort of allow myself to hold myself right there. To enjoy what’s within my eyesight. A little portrait of niceness that feels like the world in that moment. Doesn’t need to be anything more than that, and it usually ends up being something that sticks with me the rest of the day.

I’ve come to appreciate the beauty of little things. Noticing the beauty in life’s little details have made what is normally unspectacular feeling spectacular. I had a true taste of this during my holidays in Brazil, where the days were long and slow and not filled with anything particularly or overly exciting, but more a steady, rhythmic sense of easy enjoyment. And wow did that feel so beautiful. I got to feel the sun and just lay there and enjoy that feeling. I could spend my days petting the cats and dogs, and just finding ease with little pleasantries that I hardly get the chance to in NYC. At home, this can be accomplished with a quiet walk. Look around you and above you. Notice the way the light hits at the time of the day. Pay attention to the sound of your feet as you walk. Try to notice all the things that you would normally never notice, and just enjoy its good side.

Moving my body. I love to dance and move around, even without music. And sort of take on a character and let that character embody me. It’s that feeling of doing whatever your body wants to do without anyone watching. It’s the most free feeling ever. How can one be bored that way? Sometimes I even start dancing when I’m doing chores, like vacuuming or folding the laundry. It’s the funniest thing, but normally it’s these funny moments you have with yourself that feel so good and there really doesn’t need to go deeper than that in those moments.

Being my own kind of artist. Taking a notebook, sketch pad or a canvas and just being with your own silence can open up worlds. And you don’t need to actually consider yourself an artist to do so. Whether it be a sketch, playing around with paint, or scribbling a few words, or hey maybe you had a whole chapter inside of you just waiting to come out. Gabi and I keep art supplies around the house for moments like this. I love utilizing the time I have nothing to do, and dedicating it to experimenting with some art, even though it most likely won’t end up being something very good, but the process is what counts.

Stress relief, both mental and physical. Many days I’m so caught up doing things, like work, working out, socializing, even things that I love to do like taking photos, can take it’s toll on my mental and physical well being because everything can just overlap and I begin to feel like I’m doing a million things at once. My job can feel like a 24/7 one, but really it lies in my own hands when I went to turn off. I just need to put in the effort. And to be honest, being bored takes some effort because we are hardwired to constantly be productive, consuming or whatever else that society tells us we should be doing to add value into this world. But once you get to a place of accepting the fact that turning off is a necessity, then you can truly get to a place to fully embrace the art of doing nothing. I like to call it the art of existing without productivity. For me, it can be lying down on my carpet, no music, no noise, just paying attention to every inch of my body that I can; feeling of melting my muscles down into the ground without the weight of my tasks on my shoulders.

Even a break from listening to music, from reading a book, from looking up inspiration in a magazine, from watching movies is part of this art of existing without productivity. If you think about it, these are all the things we fill the in betweenness of our day-to-day routine and still give us a sense of productivity. And I always find that when I take a break from those things that I love, and replace them with more moments of boredom or acts of nothingness, I can come back to them in even better form to receive them. That to me, is where the beauty of boredom shines bright.