A lot of benefits are being stacked up on getting bored! In fact the font of creativity is, it is being believed, buried somewhere deep within the idea of boredom. What with the screen-age filling our minds with soporific information and games to play, boredom seems to be kicking out creativity. And yet, is that true? Mary Mann, freelance writer and author of “Yawn:Adventures in Boredom”, says it is.
“Why do we pretend it does not happen?” asks Mann. “There is an idea that we should not be bored and that does not really do anything to help you not be bored. It only makes you guilty about it. In the process of writing this book, the biggest and best thing that has happened is that I have learnt to be more gentle with myself and others who are bored. Like with kids, I no longer say they cannot be getting bored. I say, come let us talk about it…There is a boredom proneness scale which measures how restless you are versus how okay you are with things…it correlates with depression and with loneliness…and also with creativity. Lots of people have written about creativity…being easily bored helps you figure out different things to do to help yourself not to be bored.”
Mann agrees this is an upside to boredom, “… but there are different problems that people have. A lot of us have a ton of media at our fingertips to distract us from getting bored. There are lot of people with the opposite problem…they cannot afford it… they are really bored.” The latter kind of situation is something parents face often, though in this case it is not always because of affordability but the question of how long can kids watch the screen.
With the summer holidays just over, parents are all too familiar with the “I am bored” syndrome. Mann quotes a parent as saying, “My kid will definitely be bored if I do not sign him up for a couple of things.” To have a tight schedule for kids or allow them to watch the screen are ways of escaping from becoming their “entertainer”.
Here Mann introduces a new idea. “Parents are also people too, they are getting bored sometime. Parents face busy boredom. They are doing lots and lots of things… working for the children but are themselves feeling listless for they feel they are not engaging themselves in an interesting manner.” The weariness of chores; how repetitive tasks may make you want to scream inwardly! Mann points out the obvious - different things engage different people; different people get bored with different things. Her suggestion on how to deal with boring people, is boring. She, however, says many people worry that they are boring the other…and so many self help tips on how to get more interesting are in the market!
Boredom could be the source of creativity. And the ennui of chores is better termed, “busy boredom”.
