I am bored!

This is the age of productivity. It's that segment of evolution where reams of pages are being written on being productive, strategies to enhance efficiency and tools to achieve greatness. 

The dictum "Time is money" never seemed so true than in this age. There is almost a whole industry that has been built on maximising time and extracting every ounce of potential from individuals. Self help gurus are the trendsetters and the incessant pressure to constantly remain active is akin to stoking a fire, always adding fuel to keep it burning. 

In such an age that places a high premium on utilising time, harbouring productivity and being in the rat race, there is a high cost placed on standing still. One has to keep running races irrespective of whether one has sight on the target, an awareness of why he is in the race or what he is doing. You must seem to be busy, you must be seen busy and you must be on the run, forever. 

How did we come to this? 

About 15 to 20 years ago, there existed a period when one could pause, catch their breath, and even embrace a sense of boredom without causing disruption.

Fast forward to today's world, and the mere prospect of a few minutes of idleness compels us to grab our phones and indulge in aimless scrolling. Despite dedicating a significant portion of our awake time to electronic devices and social media, a brief detachment from them elicits a restless urge to reconnect once more.

We've reached a point where even a momentary lapse of thought terrifies us, prompting us to grab our phones and start scrolling.

Rarely in history has humanity been so relentless in its battle against boredom. Those momentary gaps in schedules, the pause in our routines were moments that we enjoyed earlier.

However, we try to fill them up with as much distractions as possible currently. It's as if we abhor any thoughts of boredom and would do anything to bring in distractions in its place. 

It so happened that I was waiting for a friend on a road watching the traffic and the hubbub. 

A couple of minutes later, I felt a strange sense of anxiety enveloping around me. I started feeling a kind of judgement from other people moving around. 

All of them seemed to be in a hurry, vehicles were honking, the people walking on the road looked to be so occupied and with plate full of work. Even the people in buses seemed to be busy, occupied with phones, fervently typing something, lost in some videos playing on screen, talking intently on the phone. Here was I, completely unoccupied, with nothing to do other than waiting. 

Five minutes stretched out before me, seemingly interminable.

Without much thought, I retrieved my phone. It didn't really matter that there was nothing specific I needed to do or see on it. I unlocked the device and began scrolling through the familiar content once more. Suddenly, I appeared occupied, as if engrossed in something important. A sense of ease enveloped me, and the external world faded into the background. It was a moment of tranquility.

Yes, taking out the phone and scrolling is the new normal and felt like a tranquil moment!

Phew!

This act of being occupied with something all the time is seen in small kids usually. The toddlers are hard to satisfy, always in need of some activity that pleases them and even a few minutes of not finding anything pleasurable kindles their desire to cry out loud. The mother gives some other toy or switches on some cartoon show to distract the kid. Lo and behold, the kid goes silent again. Until the next time, when a bit of boredom creeps in. 

As kids grow up, that penchant to thwart any sort of boredom instantly starts reducing and they embrace times of boredom, not doing anything, and get comfortable with being boring and getting bored. But this evolution of embracing boredom is being replaced by an urge to keep switching from one activity to another constantly. 

You are doing some work, the mind gets a little bored, and even without any conceivable signal received, we would have started scrolling Facebook or Twitter. Ten minutes of that, we would have jumped to watching reels, half an hour later, jump to Youtube videos, one hour later, jump back to work, then some TV and the list goes on. 

To cut things short, the modern human is characterised by multiple context switches with absolutely no "boring" time in between. Every single blank canvas of the mind where we are disengaged with the outside world and the mind just wanders, has to be filled with all sorts of distractions. That's what makes us seem normal, to be in sync with the times and the world. Any deviation, any longer lingering of that bored time, and we get anxious that something is wrong with us. 

While all this digital revolution seems to keep us safe from boredom, are we really insulated from it? Think of it and the answer there also is NO. 

We are mostly unable to read long form content. Videos exceeding ten minutes would mostly be skipped or fast forwarded. Reels and shorts are the in thing that allows one to keep going from one reel to another as they would just be thirty seconds long. Even there, one has to catch the attention in the first 2-3 seconds itself, failing which, that shortest form of content too would get the scroll treatment.

A song has to catch hold of our senses in the first minute for us to play it to completion. Otherwise the skip button makes it so easy. 

A movie has to get into the heart of the story in the first 15 minutes itself, otherwise we don't hesitate to take out phones in the cinema halls too or just press the fast forward button on OTTs. 

Attention span has become so frugal.

I read a fact that the average attention span of humans was 12 seconds in 2000. 23 years later, it has shrunk significantly to 8.25 seconds, that is lower than the attention span of a goldfish! 

The numbers are expected to go down further. 

In such fast forward lives and such shrinking attention spans, where is the place or the space for boredom? 

Why is being bored such a taboo now? 

Can we instead see it as a gift? 

Can it be something that we need not have to run away from? 

If you are wondering about this, read on to find out how it could be a gift. 

Each of us has something called the inner voice. Getting submerged with all the noise has meant that we have stopped taking cognisance of this inner voice. When we have moments with nothing to do, that is when this voice can be heard. 

Psychologists opine that running away from ourselves and shutting off this inner voice can lead to anxiety and depression. So why not start tapping into this voice and allow it a chance to speak to us.

If we can't accept or connect with ourselves and are unable to listen to that voice, how would we fare in the outside world? 

Being bored lets your mind wander and bring forth hitherto unknown feelings, emotions and ideas. Yes, there are many other random thoughts too that can and will occur. 

These might be terrifying at first. 

However, it's a great opportunity for discovery that could give more meaning and purpose to our lives. 

Instead of constantly reacting to stimuli or getting drowned out in the myriad entertainment options, the bored time could be a harbinger of new thoughts that could lead us to personal growth or even unleash creativity in many avenues. 

It could also lead you to self introspection and reflect on your own actions and thoughts. 

Imagine you have read a wonderful book. You then turn to your usual modes of distraction and quickly forget everything you read a while ago. 

What if you get bored and allow yourself to stay in that state longer?

The ideas and thoughts in the book get assimilated and regurgitate in the contours of your mind, thus allowing you to internalise a few of them. 

The same could hold true of your work. You have tried 'n' number of ways to do something and it has not yielded the desired outcome. A bored state could shed light on one more unexplored area. 

Whether it works or not is secondary, but allowing yourself that space to entertain new ideas and explorations is vital for progress. 

Otherwise we would be relegated to doing the same old things in the same old ways and then getting forcefully distracted to run away from our own selves. 

Boredom is also the time when you allow your mind to rest. 

Swamped with the incessant intake of information at every waking moment, the time when you get into that bored and inactivity zone is the golden period for the brain to take a breather and not get subjected to such huge volumes of information. 

The reason we seek out the external digital forms of entertainment is because we do not trust our own capabilities to keep ourselves engaged. We seem inadequate for ourselves. That's why a few minutes of isolation festers a fear, a repulsion to quickly escape, lest we catch hold of ourselves. 

What would we do with that person? 

Embracing boredom implies embracing our own selves. 

That acceptance goes a long way in moulding our mental makeup.

A common refrain heard from people is that they do not want to stay with their own thoughts as it brings back past memories, experiences, pains, troubles, guilt etc.

But it can also bring forth the good memories and so many instances for which we need to be grateful for. 

It is also so important to stay with the bad thoughts too for a while and allow them the chance to fully wriggle out and dissipate. The more we just keep distracting ourselves, the more those memories keep festering in some part of the mind. 

The minute you give them a stage to perform a virtuoso concert, they would have got their validation and quickly make an exit. 

That thoughts churning space is so vital. 

That is why being bored is so vital. 

When bored, let it be. 

When bored, hold yourself back from the temptation of easy distractions. 

Allow your mind to wander, let the thoughts come freely. 

It's alright to not seem busy. It's alright to take a pause in the race. It's alright to not always chase perfection and productivity. It's alright to take it easy. 

It's our life. It's our race. We can set the rules and we can set the pace. 

The more we get into digital intoxication to avoid ourselves, the more we stray away from our own identities. 

Get bored, get idle, get fresh and reboot. 

PS: All the thoughts expressed here and the structure of the blog came to my mind when I was bored. 😁