Boredom Is Not the Enemy

There is a generation that has never been bored — or rather, has not allowed itself to be bored for more than a few seconds before reaching for a device.

Boredom, when it is allowed to sit for more than the few seconds before you reach for something, becomes something else. It becomes a kind of permeability — a state in which your mind is not occupied and is therefore available for whatever arrives. This is the state in which most genuine ideas appear. It is also the state in which you simply notice what is around you in a way that constitutes being present in the world.

The problem is that this permeability is uncomfortable before it is interesting. The first thirty seconds of doing nothing is restlessness. The mind wants occupation. It reaches. The question is whether you let it reach or whether you sit with the restlessness long enough for it to pass into something else.

I am not asking for long periods of boredom. I am asking for occasional voluntary tolerance of the restlessness — five minutes on the park bench before reaching for the phone. That is enough.