“Boredom is the desire for desires.”
Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
Image by The Florida Finibus Team
I’m sitting in class, listening to my professor, Dr. Podlesnik, lay down the fundamentals of behavior analysis. He says that all behavior can be explained by two things—an antecedent and a consequence. We behave either because we are reacting to something—an antecedent—or because we want something—a consequence—or both. In any case, every behavior is straddled, front and back, by these two things.
I hear this and I squirm in my seat. That can’t be right, can it? Is that all we are? Reactive, external-reward-seeking organisms? Animals? Robots? Now, to clarify, I understand why science must accept this axiom. If we aren’t working within this framework of causality, we would never make any discoveries. But this isn’t hard science; this isn’t physics or chemistry—this is psychology. Psychology is, to put it shortly, the study of why humans do anything. And if we use the theory that behavior analysis expounds, we are reducing the answer to that all-important question to survival. All antecedents might just be different forms of predators that we must fight or flee from. All consequences might just be variations of food that we must hunt for. Everything becomes avoidance of pain, pursuit of satiation. However, if survival was always the ultimate goal, we would have stopped building our empires of excess long ago. And so again, I squirm in my seat. I scream in my head, shouldn’t this class be paired with some philosophical discussion?
I meander to my next class, questions heavy on my mind about why humans do more than just survive. I stroll into the classroom, find a seat, and then I take out a three-thousand year-old book. This is an English class. The book we’re reading is called The Way Things Are, by Lucretius. It’s a deeply philosophical text, written in the form of a poem. Professor Rudnytsky begins to explain to us that Lucretius is emphasizing a materialistic worldview (not materialism, but materialist). This means that everything came to be through natural processes, and that everything is matter. Lucretius was an absolute empiricist, which means his worldview aligns perfectly with science.
Again, I begin to squirm. But before I can do that, Lucretius attempts to qualify his claims. He calls it “the swerve”—when atoms sometimes don’t follow strict rules of determinism, and they veer off randomly, thus the emergence of human consciousness and the illusion of free will. However, what’s he really saying? Isn’t he just explaining that there is still something yet unexplained?! What causes atoms to act unnaturally then? It brings me back to the same question: what gives us the urge to act against or further than natural survival instincts?
I get back home, sit on my rug, and stare into space. Both of my classes have left me scratching my head. But it’s more than confusion—it’s disappointment, frustration. Frustration? Why? Perhaps because the instructions to life continue to be so unclear! The things I’m being taught seem to contradict what everyone holds as common sense. People don’t come to college just to survive. I could live in my parents’ basement and survive.
So if it’s not to survive, then what am I here to do? To have a good time? I know that’s not sufficient either. I recall a particular seminar when a professor once asked us a simple hypothetical: if you could choose between 1) doing nothing and receiving a constant rush of dopamine for your entire life, or 2) continuing your life as it is, which would you choose? Allow me to hypothesize: most people would choose the second option. And yes, most people in the seminar answered with the second option. Over the past year, I’ve even asked many other people that same question and they all answered the same. Answering with the second option makes sense, of course, it’s the nobler sounding one, yes. Instinct, or common sense, tells you to answer with that one. But at the same time, why the heck would you choose that? Giving up the first option of unlimited happiness? Are you crazy? Is that not what everyone claims they want? I guess it’s not. And if it’s not, then as a human being stuck with a common sense that tells you to make such an irrational decision, you have to figure out why. You just have to.
When asked why they wouldn’t choose the first option, most people said boredom. Now, boredom is interesting, per the title of UF professor Erin Westgate’s paper, “Why Boredom Is Interesting.” Boredom is interesting because it is actually one of our instinctual pains as humans. Paradoxically, studies show that many people would rather self-administer a shock to themselves when placed in a room by themselves than do nothing.
People may acknowledge this and begin to form a cynical outlook on boredom. They see it as a place where rough and tumble behavior emerges. “Isn’t history ultimately the result of our fear of boredom?” says Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran. Here’s another from British philosopher Bertrand Russell: “Boredom is…a vital problem for the moralist, since half the sins of mankind are caused by the fear of it.” In these quotes, boredom is something to be feared because of the harm we end up inflicting out of boredom. Thus, here is a possible solution to that problem: “People should learn how to just be there, doing nothing... It's not so easy to just be. If you can be happy, relaxed, and smiling when you're not doing something, you're quite strong. Doing nothing brings about quality of being, which is very important. So doing nothing is actually something.” That was said by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese monk. In many ways, Lucretius also has ascetic ideals, especially in Book IV of The Way Things Are, where he talks about resisting our urges in order to protect our peace.
If boredom is something to be feared, then we should try to find a way to rid of boredom. We should hone it as an art, so that we no longer feel bored, rather we attempt to feel a constant state of gratitude. That is what those great thinkers quoted above might be trying to teach. However, there is another side to this coin of boredom. Some would say this is one of the points where eastern thought and western thought begin to diverge. (See what kind of discussion boredom has generated? Boredom really is interesting!)
The other side of this coin begins with us circling back to the definition of boredom. Earlier we said boredom was interesting because it was a natural “pain.” Now, what is the function of pain? To keep us alive. Pain tells us something is wrong and that we need to do something about it. What is wrong when we are bored? What’s wrong is that we’re not engaged in something meaningful—hence—the search for meaning is woven into the fabric of our biology. Boredom is the pain that keeps us not just alive, but human. It points us towards survival at its highest actualization.
Further, the fact that different people find different things boring means navigating boredom is an individual quest. Boredom is a moment when all distractions are stripped away, and you’re alone with your thoughts. You could argue that we are most focused when we are bored. If that’s the case, we have to channel that focus! When you’re bored, is your mind not already subconsciously rummaging through things you could be doing? That’s why it is crucial to pay attention when you’re bored. Don’t let “doom scrolling” be your first option. Boredom is precisely the time when you can figure out what makes you, you, depending on where your mind wanders, or what you do next. Do you pick up a pen and start drawing? Do you call up a friend? Do you put on a movie? Do any of these things say anything about you? Use boredom as your personal compass.
It is a good sign you can become bored. The fact that you can feel bored makes you human.
The fact that you can feel bored means you want something more. So strive, my friends. Explore. If you find yourself continually going back to the same thoughts when you’re bored, be sure to listen! Those daydreams are what make you more than an animal. As Dostoevsky once wrote in The Brothers Karamazov, “The mystery of human existence lies not in just staying alive, but in finding something to live for.”
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