if you're never bored you're not living
I firmly believe that our technology obsessed society robs children of something vitally important - boredom. I remember being excessively and repeated bored so many times during my childhood and adolescence. That boredom helped shape who I am. But these days no one is allowed to be bored (freak out alert: I just used the phrase “these days” - I am now officially an old fuddy-duddy!) . And fine, yes, sure, entertainment and distraction have their merits, but boredom - real genuine nothing-to-do-ness - is a necessary part of the growing up and living process. That’s where imagination and (mis)adventure are born.
When bored on my own, I would create and sculpt hundreds of worlds and I dreamt of possibilities that made me run the full gamut of emotions, from giggle fits to tears. I decided what I believed, gave myself nightmares, and developed my own life philosophies during these entertainment-deprived lulls. And when bored with a friend, or with a group of bored amigos, we’d make our own stupid stupid fun. It was usually ridiculous and juvenile, but it was ours - playing dress up to look like goths and roaming the city trying to out-depress each other by making up nihilistic poems about what we saw (I won with a little ditty called “stinky bin-liner, your time is finite”); lying across swirly chairs backwards and then staring at each other under the table (while imagining we were in a dive bar and had to drink upside down); daring each other to say stupid things to strangers; hours spent in a nearby park with a couple of discarded cans of paint as we meticulously coloured a patch of grass neon green and brown; stalking that hot guy who worked at Big W but then running away every time he looked in our direction; sand castle construction battles, dance battles and battle battles.
Even today, I still like to give myself a bit of time to be bored in each week. Although I haven’t done any peer-reviewed studies for scientific journals yet, I’m convinced that bored time adds to the quality and longevity of life (or at least it seems longer while you’re bored). That’s when I close my eyes and imagine I’m blind and have to navigate the perilous landscape of my house or when I’m pretending to be a ballerina in the bathroom. Bring on the boredom, I say. Because life is far too short to always be busily and purposefully occupied.
When bored on my own, I would create and sculpt hundreds of worlds and I dreamt of possibilities that made me run the full gamut of emotions, from giggle fits to tears. I decided what I believed, gave myself nightmares, and developed my own life philosophies during these entertainment-deprived lulls. And when bored with a friend, or with a group of bored amigos, we’d make our own stupid stupid fun. It was usually ridiculous and juvenile, but it was ours - playing dress up to look like goths and roaming the city trying to out-depress each other by making up nihilistic poems about what we saw (I won with a little ditty called “stinky bin-liner, your time is finite”); lying across swirly chairs backwards and then staring at each other under the table (while imagining we were in a dive bar and had to drink upside down); daring each other to say stupid things to strangers; hours spent in a nearby park with a couple of discarded cans of paint as we meticulously coloured a patch of grass neon green and brown; stalking that hot guy who worked at Big W but then running away every time he looked in our direction; sand castle construction battles, dance battles and battle battles.
Even today, I still like to give myself a bit of time to be bored in each week. Although I haven’t done any peer-reviewed studies for scientific journals yet, I’m convinced that bored time adds to the quality and longevity of life (or at least it seems longer while you’re bored). That’s when I close my eyes and imagine I’m blind and have to navigate the perilous landscape of my house or when I’m pretending to be a ballerina in the bathroom. Bring on the boredom, I say. Because life is far too short to always be busily and purposefully occupied.