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To the Bored All Things Are Boring

• sans_souse 2y ago
  Reminds me of the old EU commercial "BORED WITH BORING BOARD GAMES??"
• dev-jayson 2y ago
  I'm reading this article because I'm bored. And I'm commenting this midway into the article because I got bored again. I guess the author really did get his point across.
  • Maf1 2y ago
    Me too.. I decided to use Chat GPT to summarise the article!
    • dartos 2y ago
      I’m so bored of chatgpt that when I ask it to summarize something, I stop reading before it finishes generating
• purple-leafy 2y ago
  The state of boredom is due to a lack of focus, goals, and having too many options. Also, bored people are typically boring people. Remove all social media, stop reading the news, get on top of your finances, keep a small but significantly valued group of friends, have a vision for your life, and have honbies and side projects, and failing all that - get off your ass and go for a walk. If you’re disabled that last part makes things tricky though unfortunately for some. I’m never bored, there’s too many rabbit holes and too much work to do
  • mapcars 2y ago
    > bored people are typically boring people. > I’m never bored This is a contradiction, finding someone or something boring means you are bored by it ;)
  • bowsamic 2y ago
    These are exactly the kind of actions the article warns against
  • grape_surgeon 2y ago
    what if i enjoy reading the news and that makes me not bored
    • purple-leafy 2y ago
      That’s fine if you enjoy being manipulated by the media
      • I_o_IllI__o_I 2y ago
        [dead]
      • johnnyanmac 2y ago
        As fine as I am to exchange half my waking moments for the ability to pay for the other half of my life. Barely. Can't really avoid "manipulation" without withdrawing entirely from the world it's less important to avoid manipulation than it is to have a good moral compass when evaluating biases. Another decreasing factor of modern humanity.
      • grape_surgeon 2y ago
        Idk man the news I consume is really dry. I'm really selective about what sources I use. It's usually just statistics about things. But yeah go ahead and assume I'm a thoughtless sheep, very condescending of you. Of course your intellect is so superior
  • scaryclam 2y ago
    > Also, bored people are typically boring people. This is such a bad sentiment. Being bored is fine and a normal part of existance, it doesn't make a person boring. There are LOTS of reasons to get bored and we don't all need to feel stimulated all of the time. Being bored can push people to do something new, being bored can just be down to having to watch Cars with your kid for the 1000th time because they want to watch it with you and you don't always put your own self first. Being bored can also be due to burnout, trying to chase all the shiney new stuff to make yourself feel interesting.
    • s1artibartfast 2y ago
      I think the platitude is geared towards people who are chronically or continuously bored. The subtext is that when motivated and engaged people feel bored they find something to do. They recognize that the emotion they experience does not indicate that the world is devoid of engaging activities and ideas.
      • user_7832 2y ago
        While true perhaps for some people, this still risks labelling folks with eg depression/dysthymia/chronic fatigue as boring. Lacking (mental) energy can prevent one from doing a lot of things.
        • purple-leafy 2y ago
          Which is a shame, but that probably does make someone more boring at face value. I’ve suffered depression many times, I would say while depressed I was pretty boring to be around. Which is a shame, but probably true
          • s1artibartfast 2y ago
            Exactly, depression isn’t known for its fun and exciting side effects.
          • user_7832 2y ago
  • ordu 2y ago
    > I’m never bored, there’s too many rabbit holes and too much work to do It is a temporary condition. At some point on thousandth rabbit hole you'll feel yourself bored, and decide not to dive deeper, because what is the point. Probably you will be able to use rabbit holes as a means to fight boredom for some time afterwards, but it would be harder and harder with time passed. Many people I know felt something like that with video games. Video games were interesting. Then they became not so interesting. And then people just lost the point of playing video games. My brother was constantly upgrading his PC to play newest titles. Now he is still upgrading his PC, because it makes him feel happy, but he doesn't play anymore. I never upgraded my PC to play a game, I played those that could run on the hardware I had. Now I don't play games either. I try sometimes to play to fight boredom, but it doesn't work, it is more boring to play now than not to play. > Remove all social media, stop reading the news, get on top of your finances, keep a small but significantly valued group of friends, have a vision for your life You know, it is easier to learn how to deal with boredom than to achieve all this points. Some people never manage to have friends or to get on top of their finances. All these things is what maybe makes you immune to boredom. It doesn't mean it will help others: people are wonderfully different. But the worse: probably all these things have nothing to do with your lack of boredom. What you witness is a correlation, it doesn't have to be a causation, it can even be a spurious correlation.
    • HPsquared 2y ago
      I lost interest in video games all of a sudden when I saw how they were made, and how all those little design elements were made to keep the player's interest and attention. I was like "oh, I'm being manipulated constantly when playing this". Really put me off, like "seeing how sausages are made".
      • purple-leafy 2y ago
        That’s a fair reaction to seeing how the sausages are made. I wonder what will happen to the human condition when the great questions are finally answered. How did we get here, how did the universe come to be, are there aliens ?
      • 2y ago
  • johnnyanmac 2y ago
    >get on top of your finances Neat, I just need to get a job... oh, jobs aren't biting, not much I can do except study... oh, don't have time (nor money) to do fun stuff. Yeah, I've admittedly been a boring person the past 15 months or so. I wouldn't confuse boring with lethargic, though. You really can't do much more than meander around to keep up your physical spirits up and invert binary trees to keep your metal spirits up while you wait between rounds of tech interviews that (these days) have a 70% chance to ghost you.
  • powersnail 2y ago
    I'm bored when I'm doing things that I'm not interested in, but at the same time, have to pay a lot of attention, like attending some of the meetings, or certain lectures when I was a student. The problem is the opposite of having too many options. If I have options, if the situation allows my mind wonder, if I don't need to focus, but instead can think about anything, I can easily sit there for hours without getting bored.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • carlmr 2y ago
    >Remove all social media, stop reading the news While I kind of despise the platitude you were leading with about boring people being bored. I think this sentiment is key. By removing modern stimulation (including checking HN too often), you get bored at first, very bored, until your mind can appreciate the novelty it finds on its own instead of being spoon-fed by the constant online shouting match.
  • red-iron-pine 2y ago
    > and having too many options. I'm old enough to be able to remember when there were ~6 TV channels, and, really, only 4 of them actually worked. You had option A, B, C, or D, and you picked on. Usually it came down to an A or B. Now with 300 channels I get lost in choosing something, and ultimately default to something generic as background noise as opposed to actually giving it my attention. See also: Fromm's Escape From Freedom
• brg 2y ago
  One of the best pieces of advice/criticism I was told in elementary school, "Only boring people get bored."
  • aidos 2y ago
    That always felt like such a meaningless statement to me.
    • BerislavLopac 2y ago
      My take on this would be that, if you can think of various activities to do when you have nothing to do, whether on your own or with others, you can't be bored.
      • johnnyanmac 2y ago
        If you can think of stuff to do but you are trapped doing boring stuff, you'll be bored. boredom at its core is a lack of furfillment and ability to realize it, not a lack of imagination. No point imagining a wonderful summer vacation in Paris when you barely have $1000 in the bank for in case the car breaks down.
        • cableshaft 2y ago
          No, but you can probably get to the local library and check out some books (or movies, or games, or comics) for free. Or go outside and take a walk. Or assuming you have a computer, go online and learn one of hundreds of subjects for free. Or if you have paper and a pencil, doodle or write something. I was 'trapped doing boring stuff' at school all the time growing up, especially in elementary school and junior high which were always way too easy for me, but I would pass the time away during class by either daydreaming, or doodling, or writing poems, or trying to invent a new language, or printing stories in tiny font and reading them, or brainstorming ideas for things to do later, or designing levels to new video games I thought I'd create someday, or drawing out the structure of a web site I wanted to make, and then later when I got a calculator you could code on, I was coding simple games on it.
• keiferski 2y ago
  I think boredom is basically the result of a mismatch between small and big concepts of identity. By that I mean the feeling of being bored arises when the following conditions are true: 1. You don’t enjoy the thing you’re doing for itself, intrinsically 2. You can’t see how doing this thing now adds up to a greater purpose and long-term goal. This lack of a path leads to a loss of interest in the particular moment. For #1, I really like what Japanese thought has to say about this. More specifically, Zen Buddhist-adjacent ideas like wabi sabi and the haiku poetry form. [1] They really help you center yourself on the moment and appreciate the impermanence of existence, which gets rid of that “wasted time” feeling. #2 is more tricky and this problem is more endemic to modernity as a whole. I’m not sure what the solution is, other than to make long-term life plans and consistently fight off all of the cultural pressure to discard them and YOLO instead. 1. I wrote about wabi sabi and haiku on my (somewhat inactive) Substack last year, which you might find interesting: https://onthearts.com/p/how-to-write-a-proper-haiku https://onthearts.com/p/how-to-write-a-proper-haiku https://onthearts.com/p/what-does-wabi-sabi-really-mean https://onthearts.com/p/what-does-wabi-sabi-really-mean
• langsoul-com 2y ago
  Overstimulation is something that definitely contributes to boredom. Life isn't always exciting, it's no action movie. Everything would pale in comparison to the most interesting thing done. I found in my day to day life, everything is getting boring. Work cannot hold a candle to how interesting games or movies are. It's almost become a depression, is the rest of my life going to be THIS boring?
  • HPsquared 2y ago
    Just like how junk food is loaded with salt, fat and sugar. It stimulates our receptors and healthy food seems bland in comparison.
  • stavros 2y ago
    I don't know, I find creating things extremely exciting. As long as I can make something, I'm never bored. Games and movies bore me just because they pale so much in comparison to creating. I'm never not excited.
    • piva00 2y ago
      Absolutely agree, it took me most of my adult life to understand I was attracted to programming as a kid because of the creative flow it gives. Also why the usual day job at a bigger company in tech is not even close to fun as it is during the times I'm working on a pet project. Anything too passive like watching films/series, or playing single player games which takes 40-80h to complete can bore the hell out of me but skill-based games are almost like crack. Same to creative efforts, making music (while trying to improve on it), photography, woodworking, they all put me into hyperfocus mode easily.
      • stavros 2y ago
        Oh yeah, I forgot about my terrible DotA addiction, you're right. I rarely game, but I will get sucked into skill-based games to an unhealthy degree sometimes. So far it's only been DotA and chess, but even for those, I only play when I'm not making anything.
• anonyfox 2y ago
  Personally I chase being in a bored state. Adult life with all the duties is exhausting and drains mental/physical energy every day, to the point that nothing _meaningful_ can be achieved really. No, usually work is pointless exchange of time/energy vs money in order to live comfortably, sometimes sugarcoated in a higher "mission/vision". Being in a stressed state also favors a mindset of "getting it done" with the actual goal of getting rid of the task at hand, aka "productivity", and some people think that a series of these completitions are a trajectory towards something rewarding - for me it isn't. But when there are these moments where duties (work, kids, household, ...) are actually done, when there is no desire to play/watch the latest thing right now, this is when the good kind of boredom kicks in for me: aimless reflection. mentally consolidating myself into the world, where am I, where things are going to, where I want to be next, how to probably get there. Going through it feels very relaxing, and activates some very existential kind of creativity (not the "solve the problem smarter thing), and fuels my energy a lot more than anything else in life. Being in this bored state is a precursor of feeling control over life again, and adjusting the inner compass to get updated directions to follow. ... but this doesn't happen when being busy/distracted, a state that drains my energy, and even accumulates dread every single day until the stressors are gone again and I feel "bored".
  • okokwhatever 2y ago
    agree totally
  • mapcars 2y ago
    I think you are missing the main point is that all the duties you picked up yourself because you saw some value in them, they were not forced on you. Trying to understand why you did that in the first place might help. >usually work is pointless exchange of time/energy vs money This is a terrible normality, if you don't have a greater vision to work towards by yourself, at least find work that is fun.
    • anonyfox 2y ago
      well the first thing is that having to earn an income is not something that was optional really. Sure you can decide to not do it, but then you have tradeoffs in how comfortable your life situation is. its kind of a free time XOR money situation when you're not born wealthy. free time without money sucks differently than money without free time. and with making money, some amounts of duties are attached, depending on how you do it. more like a "pick your poison" situation instead of being optional entirely. also I have sold too many visions to too many people by myself professionally to actually believe the "change the world" bullshit anymore, ever. organizations first and foremost exist to make money, even charities at some point either prioritize it to some extend or they cease to function, and charities also tend to not pay well compared to real industry jobs, so again trade-offs. you can say "well thats the system" or "thats how capitalism works!" - and then you have it, "the system" forced these duties onto myself. I personally would prefer an environment not focussed on money, being able to live comfortably and being able to do things that are interesting or truly helpful for others instead. But hey, most people can imagine the literal end of the world easier than the end of capitalism, even though the concept itself isn't that old or "god given" to begin with. people discussing the "future of work" in the face of rising AI and robotics really should have a look at Marx again how this will play out.
• visarga 2y ago
  Boredom signals we've lost our curiosity - we're either too serious or stuck exploiting the familiar. Cultivating "engaged curiosity" is the key. It's a self-reinforcing cycle: the more we explore and play with open attention, the more meaning we create. This curiosity flywheel builds momentum through our actions. Nobody else can spark it for us; we must actively nurture it. The trick is keeping our attention open to catch novel sparks from the world, rather than retreating to the safe and known.
  • euroderf 2y ago
    Tell all the children ...!
    • visarga 2y ago
      Many kids overfit to a very specific narrow set of games. The idea is to explore
  • zaphod420 2y ago
    My wife is always complaining that we need to let our child be bored. There seems to be some benefits. https://childmind.org/article/the-benefits-of-boredom/ https://childmind.org/article/the-benefits-of-boredom/
• mseepgood 2y ago
  If I ever get bored, it's only in situations where I can't easily leave to do what I want. For example, in meetings or while waiting for transportation. Otherwise, I always know something interesting to do.
  • mapcars 2y ago
    > I can't easily leave to do what I want > For example, in meetings or while waiting for transportation So why did you end up in that meeting or transportation? Because there is some end goal that you want to achieve, but your mind is not focused enough to see this. If you become aware of being bored just remind yourself what is your end goal and consciously see that the situation you are in is the best way known to you (at least right now) to achieve it.
• smusamashah 2y ago
  I read here on HN some time ago that boredom is actually a good thing. And when we are bored we get new ideas. Otherwise we find ways to keep ourselves busy and entertained throughout by any means. Not letting ourselves bored means not letting ourselves get creative.
  • poatt 2y ago
    Can everyone truly relate to this?
    • smusamashah 2y ago
      https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34138188 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34138188
• phito 2y ago
  Sometimes I feel extremely bored, I have a huge list of things that has to be done, and that I want and live to do, but I just can't do them. It's probably linked to my ADHD, it's one of the most frustrating states I can find myself in.
  • eastbound 2y ago
    I have found being tired makes me unapt to plow through mundane things that need to be done. I have found I was snoring and doing sleep apnea, got a dentition apparatus (€800 in France, mostly reimbursed) to move the lower mandibula forward, and bahm, motivation is back. However my teeth don’t align anymore and I’m quite upset about that part. But at least I plow through normal difficulties, which helps me organize holidays and house maintenance better, which helps me find much better fulfillment in life.
  • johnnyanmac 2y ago
    The equivalent of looking into a full fridge and finding nothing to eat. There's some sort of hyper fixation you get when your mind locks onto some certain thing and it makes everything else feel inadequate in that moment. Worst part is that you don't always know what that certain thing is. Ever feel hungry but you scroll through places aimlessly and can't put your finger on that "taste" you want? Happened to me today.
    • phito 2y ago
      Indeed... Happens to me every day in different ways.
  • isnulldopamine 2y ago
    [dead]
• hacker-l 2y ago
  This reminds me of a saying ... For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.
• tr3ntg 2y ago
  I like this article, and got really interested when the author says that “neither avoiding or resigning to boredom is the answer.” I was curious to see the non-obvious, eye-opening solution. But the solution is a reworded “resign yourself to boredom.” I still appreciate this conclusion, and it’s the one I expected from the article’s opener, but I’m not sure how else to describe fixing this. Expect to be bored. It’s a superpower if you can embrace it. Definitely not healthy to flit from one exciting but fleeting activity to the next.
• jrs235 2y ago
  My saying has always been "Bored people are boring people."
• commeytommy 2y ago
  [dead]