Get Bored

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When I was in college, I took a class called "The History of Science," a survey of the lives of scientific thinkers and the progression of scientific thought and understanding. While I thoroughly enjoyed the course, very few of the details have lingered. One that has, though, was the repeated pattern that so many of these world-changing thinkers were ill as children. Not shocking, given the state of medicine and childhood mortality before the invention of antibiotics and vaccines, but still, the detail emerged again and again—sickly as a child, spent months abed as a youth, contracted polio or measles or scarlet fever, and took years to fully recover.

The advent of vaccines inarguably changed the face of the world for the better. Fatality from smallpox before vaccines ranged up to 60%, and survivors were often disfigured or disabled for life⁠¹. Before the 20th century, approximately half of children died before puberty⁠². Antibiotics, discovered in the form of penicillin in 1928, led to an astonishing drop in mortality worldwide, including in children. While the world faces challenges from a growing population, few would argue that more children growing up is a bad thing.

Similarly, the advent and rapid progression of technology over the past century and a half is largely a positive change. While there are undoubtedly downsides to social media, to the screens that dominate our lives, to cars and planes, and all of the modern conveniences, there are enormous upsides as well. Refrigeration made food easy to store and safe to eat. Modern appliances reduced the necessity of housework, freeing up hundreds of woman hours that could be used for personal growth and pursuits. Even things as fraught as social media have led to amazing connections and a sharing of and access to knowledge never before seen in the history of our species.

As I left college and moved on with my life, the thought occasionally came up from time to time—especially when I fell ill—that there was some connection between boredom and creative thinking. My favorite thing to do when I get sick is watch movies; indeed, one of my earliest memories is my mother renting a VCR when I got chicken pox. Even before social media came to dominate our lives, it was easy to be entertained. But sometimes, when I was browsing through my DVD collection to find a movie to distract me from my runny nose or watery eyes, I'd wonder, "What would happen in a world where all I could do is sit with myself and think? What if I only had three books to read, and no one to read them to me? What if that went on for months?" I'd ponder the thought, then sneeze and press play.

In no way would I argue that childhood illness is something to be lauded or envied, nor am I an anti-technology enthusiast. My children are not only vaccinated, but definitely consume more media and screens than is recommended. But I've repeatedly noticed that if I give them enough time and space to get bored, they come up with the most creative and delightful games. We do regular "screen cleanses" where we're all limited from screens for a few days, and our day-to-day conflicts decrease every time we do this. When they get sick, the thought often comes into my mind that perhaps boredom would be good for them, but it's hard to make a miserable child more miserable!

When I decided to begin writing, one of the first craft books I read was On Writing by Stephen King. Although I'd never read King's fiction, he is one of the most successful writers in history, so I figured he must have something to say worth listening to. The book remains one of my favorites on the craft. But as I was listening to King talk about his childhood, it struck me that he spent so much time sick in first grade that he had to repeat the year in school, reminding me of all those scientists who were sick as children. There was no television to entertain him—all he could do was read, think, and sleep. Other famous writers have similar tales. Bram Stoker was bedridden as a young child. Robert Louis Stevenson would fall ill in the winter. The experience is far from universal, and is easily explained away by the frequency of such illnesses before the modern era.

And yet, I wonder what would happen if I let myself get well and truly bored.

There is an abundance of research showing that silence and stillness are good for the brain. Meditation is a popular and much-researched activity, and noise-canceling devices are increasingly popular⁠³. I own three pairs of silicone ear plugs and I use them for sleep, car rides, and loud environments that trigger my anxiety. Neil Gaiman famously allows himself to do "absolutely nothing or write." Silence can reduce stress, decrease heart rate and blood pressure, and slow breathing⁠⁴. Allowing the mind to wander, with as little stimulus as possible, allows the brain to make connections and become more creative⁠⁵. Just two hours of silence in a day can increase "cell development in the hippocampus, the brain region related to the formation of memory, involving the senses."⁠⁶

Letting the brain make connections, search through memory and experience to make sense of the world, can be comforting⁠⁷. Neuroscientists studying brain activity during mental tasks noticed that there was a type of "background brain activity" that increased most when the brain was doing "absolutely nothing."⁠⁸ Most writers, and indeed, most creatives could tell you that quite often we are at our most creative when we're staring into the middle distance, our mind engaged only with itself, silent and otherwise unoccupied.

There's privilege implied here, of course. Having access to time and space to simply be silent is an enormous privilege in itself. Being able to sit and ponder without the world intruding implies a host of things many do not have access to. In our frenetic, goal-oriented culture, idleness is sometimes judged as laziness. Those who suffer from chronic conditions might find silence and stillness unbearable—I know that when I suffer from migraines, I am desperate for distraction. And, of course, most people who were ill as children before the modern era did not grow up to change the world. Correlation is not causation. But for those of us who yearn to be creative, getting bored might be one way to unlock that part of our minds that connects intellect and emotion, passion and logic. A few silent hours could change the world, or at least, a very small part of it.