When I was younger, I would frequently say to my parents, “I’m bored!” Often, my mom would respond with the refrain, “If you’re bored, you’re boring.” As kids, it was so easy to find ourselves in a state of boredom. Days felt incredibly, incurably long. Eternal vast openness, devoid of structure. The feeling was almost irritating. It is only now, deep within the busyness of university, that I have come to appreciate the immense privilege that the feeling of boredom affords us as humans.

University of California, Berkeley Professor of Philosophy Alva Noë writes in his book “Strange Tools: Art and Human Nature” that boredom is “a distinct emotional state, vaguely painful, that sense of being trapped in the unending and meaningless, is available only in the absence of structure, a plan, a task, or an obligation.” Modern-day distractions beckon you to exit this space. 

This slightly painful feeling offers you something that no amount of music or talking to friends can solve. It is this state of nothingness that paves the way for “everythingness.” I believe that the moments of our life filled with the squirrel brain activity of modern-day distractions could be replaced with moments of boredom. Such boredom can provide a blank slate for true contemplation, internal reflection, and deep thought about the world. In doing so, we can cultivate better lives for ourselves.

We are facing a deficit of boredom. On a walk from Siegle Hall all the way to Lopata, the majority of students are preoccupied with some type of earbud or over-the-ear headphone activity. Music. Podcasts. Calls. When we’re not doing that, we’re doing homework, socializing, working, and participating in club activities. Noë writes, “The preconditions for boredom are absent in adult life.” As we grow older, our lives only become busier. Subsequently, our lives get less boring.

Yes, I will concede that it is important for adults not to get as bored as toddlers. As adults, we organize our lives around a series of experiences that demand titles. We remember our life experiences by name: “the dinner last Saturday,” “my internship in New York,” “that horrible first date.” The practice of organizing our lives around recognizable monikers is largely accepted in practice amongst citizens of capitalist societies. One must be able to define time and organize oneself around such commitments (job interviews, meetings, deadlines) to find success in a capitalist society. We organize our lives around time so we can succeed in this world.

While the organization of our lives is generally for the better, we have filled any other empty gaps in our schedules with the aforementioned distractions of modern-day life — music, social media, and cellular devices more generally.

I am not asking you to go sell all your possessions, move to Montana, and completely detach from the developed world in an attempt to find boredom. Instead, I am arguing that we can both succeed professionally in the world and tap into this state of radical boredom, a kind of boredom that creates internal reflection and, subsequently, allows us to begin answering life’s big questions.

But why is it that 21st-century humans have such a problem with boredom? Several Harvard University psychologists conducted a series of experiments on the disengaged mind. Participants received instructions to entertain themselves with their thoughts for 15 uninterrupted minutes, but also had the opportunity to experience negative stimulation in the form of an electric shock if they so desired. The primary goal was for the participants to entertain themselves with their thoughts, and that the decision to receive a shock was entirely voluntary. The results showed that many participants preferred receiving negative stimulation over no stimulation at all.

This study serves as proof that one of the most frightening experiences for many people is the emergence of existential thoughts that arise when individuals sit free of distraction and allow their minds to activate the “default mode network.” The “default mode network” is defined as a set of interacting hubs that play an important role in the introspective mental activities in which humans spontaneously and deliberately engage in everyday life. For example, when you forget your phone and you’re waiting in a long line, your mind starts to wander. As humans, especially in the technologically advanced world, we don’t like this feeling. 

When you think about nothing, your mind begins to consider big questions about the meaning and purpose in the world. One of the reasons we have such an explosion of depression and anxiety in our society today is that people actually don’t know the meaning of their lives. We have eliminated opportunities to think about these questions by succumbing to the addictive powers of modern-day distractions every time we tap into the “default mode network.” It’s an endless loop that eliminates the possibility of boredom. 

Boredom is uncomfortable, but we grow in moments of discomfort. Discomfort-induced growth makes sense to most. The discomfort is recognizable — the feeling of a sore arm or C on your test. The growth is also recognizable — a bigger bicep or the feeling of an A on your test. What doesn’t make sense to most is the vaguely painful feeling of boredom driving the act of searching for meaning in our lives. 

But this is, perhaps, the area of our lives that we as humans should invest most of our time in. Without some semblance of meaning in our lives, we feel lost. So, I implore you to go out and watch paint dry, watch grass grow, stare up at the sky, and let your mind wander. Let yourself be bored. You will get more comfortable in the vaguely painful state of boredom. You’ll start exploring the biggest questions about our meaning and purpose on this earth. It is boredom-induced internal reflection that often leads to more happiness and outward virtue.

I look back to the refrain, “If you’re bored, you’re boring,” and I think it’s OK to be bored, for what a privilege it is to think big thoughts in a world trying to keep them small.