Rediscovering Boredom
Over the past few years I have noticed a distinct drop in creative output. I don't like it. Something needs to change.
Like a lot of people, I spent a great deal of my youth creating things. From elaborate pencil drawings to excessively wordy novellas to ephemeral worlds inhabited by whatever toys I had available. Over the years, this creativity evolved to include long-loved activities like programming and blogging, as well as occasional ones like publishing podcasts and YouTube videos. Every one of these activities are still immensely enjoyable, yet the frequency of each has not only dropped, but so has the feeling of possibility.
Creation is one of the innate abilities that we cherish in youth and miss as adults. For much of human history people had to "grow up" quickly in order to tackle the challenges of everyday life. However, in our exceedingly comfortable modern world, we have far more opportunity to not only retain our childlike wonder and creativity, but to nurture and develop it over an entire lifetime so long as we remember the most important ingredient: boredom.
When I think about the creativity that I enjoyed in my 20s, the most interesting things were often built when I stepped away from the daily pastimes of IRC, Age of Empires, and Need for Speed. All three of these were immensely enjoyable, but they often consumed most of the evening and entire weekends. In my 30s, my environment was drastically different, but I would still have a great deal of time to think while working a repetitive job and travelling by train from place to place for work. My 40s have seen even more changes through the dissolution of family and rediscovery – and reassertion – of self, but rarely have I been bored. Even over these past six months of unemployment, I have been consistently active to seek opportunities and find a source of income. The closest thing I have to boredom now is when I'm stuck behind a slow driver who thinks that 20kph below the posted speed limit is "fast enough".
The problem that I face is not an uncommon one; a plethora of choice.
Like a lot of people, I tend to use screens during downtime. The TV has a baseball game on for most of the day, providing visual stimulation and sound for both Ayumi and I, even if it's just background noise. In the evenings, the TV is used to watch YouTube videos about history, philosophy, cars, technology, and other educational subjects. The tablet is ideal for job hunting as well as reading news. The phone spends most of its day on a table but, when it is in my hand, its used to explore maps, play music, and interact on 𝕏. There are exceptions to all of these uses, of course, but the pattern of constant mental stimulation is obvious. Unless Ayumi and I are sitting on a bench in a park, rarely am I completely disconnected from things that other people have created.
This, I believe, is the crux of my creative drought. Too much consumption, cutting into production.
To this end, I'm going to make some changes to how much time I spend with a screen, and what the screen is used for. The phone has some excellent cameras that are underused. The TV needn't be on as much as it is. The tablet can also do with a little less use. When I was young, it was the object in my hand that would encourage imagination. While this was often a pen, it could also be a toy car or a model of the USS Enterprise. Let's see whether a month of reduced consumption equates to increased creativity. Will I write more? Will I put more on YouTube? Will I take better photos? Will I create better things?
Hopefully the answer to all of these questions will be a solid "yes".