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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, s

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

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