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Climbing 1651 meters, it took us nearly ten hours. Thrilled but exhausted, we looked around to find a place to rest. The summit was crowded, more than I had expected. We didn’t say much. We didn’t need to. The thrill of reaching the top pulsed quietly between us. For a few moments, we simply stared at the vastness. A kind of view that makes you feel both insignificant and entirely present. I interrupted my gaze to look around. A man would think that at a place like this, one would be spellbound by the view and not be bothered with other things. Yet, the usual habit persisted even here, at the roof of the landscape. People weren’t watching the horizon. They were watching their screens.
When a person is threatened with the danger of being alone with his own thoughts, he quickly reacts to this. He will do almost anything to escape boredom. Not because boredom is painful in itself, but because it reminds us of the emptiness beneath it all. The universal absence of any real purpose to pursue.
It causes an uncomfortable emotional state that we seek to fill with noise, motion, distraction, frantic consumption… anything that promises to make the hours feel less empty.
Before the smartphone era, the poor pre-digital wanderers of the last few centuries rarely got bored. Their days were so packed with work that it left little free time for idleness.1
Nowadays, we are “lucky.” Freed from the nonstop grind of subsistence work, we enjoy far more leisure than our ancestors ever did. Yet, there is a catch. Leisure quickly curdles into boredom when there’s nothing urgent demanding our attention. Thankfully, though, we now have the pleasure of a single, go-to apparatus that acts like a savior for that unwanted sensation of mental under-stimulation.
Ah, what a great time to be alive!
Not only do we have more free time than any generation before us, but I only need a single tap to keep myself feeling stimulated, distracted, alive. To escape the ever-present whisper in the ear of impostor syndrome. To drag my mind out of its own petty apocalypse. To flee the anxiety of the thoughts threatening to worsen my mood. Whenever leisure becomes unbearable, I can just flip the switch to a sensory-rich library of distractions – a.k.a., scroll.
But protesting against what’s already a cultural norm, again and again, is of no use.
I thought that it would be a better idea to dive a bit deeper into the psychological need to escape boredom.
To demystify the desire for constant stimulation. To examine how our craving for novelty reveals itself in compulsive phone-checking. Inability to sit alone with our own thoughts for more than a few uneasy minutes. To explore why we have become outwardly occupied yet inwardly hollow. Forever consuming but rarely producing anything that resembles genuine self-expression. Try to explain why reclaiming ambition requires more than another “life-changing” book.
If you’ve ever noticed how quickly a quiet moment turns into a frantic scroll, or how a few unoccupied minutes feel like a personal threat, then read on.
Hey there, sorry to interrupt…
Since you’ve come this far, it seems that you are passionate about pursuing depth over distraction. I am too! And while what I’m about to say next probably won’t quite excite you, I have to say it…
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See, I digest acres of complex ideas from various resources and morph my findings into straight-to-the-point book summaries, thought-provoking articles, and practical courses. The main goal is not only to help you understand the underlying concepts from badass ideas. But, also, to help you stay curious, inspired, and well-educated. Above all, though, I want to help you transition from a passive online consumer to an active, mindful go-getter with a sense of purpose.
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Footnotes:
- Daily lives and daily routines in the Long Eighteenth Century. Routledge & CRC Press. Available at: https://www.routledge.com/Daily-Lives-and-Daily-Routines-in-the-Long-Eighteenth-Century/Andersson-Stobart/p/book/9781032052595?srsltid=AfmBOoqGArmDSO6R7PAXZSUZQu03WVxVV7BazH7-6Ajq2eNsy972Trf4
- Studies in sensory deprivation | jama psychiatry | jama network. Available at: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/488319
- Wilson TD, Reinhard DA, Westgate EC, et al. Social psychology. Just think: the challenges of the disengaged mind. Science. Available at: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC4330241/
- Understanding consumer spending’s impact on Economy & Markets. Available at: https://www.brickleywealth.com/learn/how-consumer-spending-supports-the-economy-and-markets
