Boredom is not a problem to be solved, it's the privilege of a free mind

Idleness is not a problem to be solved. It's the last privilege of a free mind.

I have a 14 yr old and I rarely see him idle. I've had long conversations about this, but the lure of electronic devices is just so strong. I'm actively working to change his behavior, though.

The form of meditation is detailed in the book "Turning the Mind into an Ally" by Sakyong Mipham and Pema Chodron.

We talk of boredom - because we have grown accustomed to the idea that we must fill our time, and society presents antipathy to those who are content to merely sit and think. "What's wrong?" "You look troubled" "Would you like to go do something?"

We talk of depression - and fail to understand that much of that which we place under the term originates from the soulless mechanisation of man, the systemisation of being, the bureaucracy of orthodoxy. I'm perfectly aware that depression is also a natural response to inflammation - but that's not what I'm talking about - rather, those who are classed as depressed simply because they are unhappy with their lacklustre existences.

We used to live in small communities, often on the move, frequently exposed to novelty, in a state of little security and high self-responsibility. Life was short, and older generations didn't end up entrenched, ruling the roost over several consecutive successive generations. There's far more that we don't know about how we once lived than we do know, however.

I am very rarely bored, as there's always something to observe or think about, and the only occasions on which I do end up bored are those on which it's too depressing to think about anything.

I am often depressed by the state in which we live, in our warrens, surrounded by our own filth, closeted and cosseted in hateful little boxes from cradle to grave.

I'm aware that this could be read as a "oh, the good old days were better", but it isn't - it's an assertion that in order to ensure our own psychological and therefore societal well-being, we have to recognise that we have failed to recognise some basic human needs in the structure in which we live - and we have failed to recognise these needs practically since the dawn of civilisation. It works, just about, but it doesn't mean that it's the best possible way of being.

There are two ways out, as I see it:

1) We force ourselves into adaptation, through continued indoctrination and potentially with the aid of technology to alter the very bedrock of human nature - this may be infeasible, and isn't a terribly palatable idea.

2) We address those elements which we lack. This can only arise through experimentation with different ways of living, or through a revelatory and profound re-understanding of the nature of human beings.

If we do neither, as we entrench ourselves deeper and deeper into systemised living, it becomes harder and harder to conceive of alternatives.

I expect I'll get some vengeful replies to this, if any at all - as these ideas are deeply discomfiting, and discomfiting ideas are usually received with hostility.

I know this wasn't the thrust of your comment but having spent a lot of time studying meditation it's important to note that meditation isn't about "thinking less". Rather it's about developing the ability to see thoughts for what they are (they're just thoughts) and being able to respond (as opposed to react) to them. I can no more turn off my internal monologue than I can control when my blood cells regenerate or my skin cells slough off.

Of course, you could argue that existential and philosophical questions are critical to a studied life that is worth living, but meh.

Now I want to read Neuromancer again. Great book.

Even when carving out time at work for what I want to do, it feels tiring.

When our time is owned by someone else or when our creativity is ignored by someone else we can feel boredom and we can feel tired. I thought it would be fun to hack on Python all day and to explore a new JavaScript web framework; instead I've felt tired and just waiting for 5 or 6pm to just leave and then come home and avoid computers completely.

Maybe we're just feeling like burnt out Colin Laney from All Tomorrow's Parties?

An old Chinese hobo named Han-shan used to write strange poems on the cliffs and trees of the mountain where he lived. They're called the cold mountain poems. One of them goes like this:

Han-shan has his critics too:

‘Your poems, there’s nothing in them!’

I think of men of ancient times,

Poor, humble, but not ashamed.

Let him laugh at me and say:

‘It’s all foolishness, your work!’

Let him go on as he is,

All his life lost making money.

I'd like to observe that a course of training such as you describe seems outside the scope of the article. Perhaps it does some small good, anyway, by suggesting that acquiring such training oneself, from whatever source, is a good thing to do.

Solitary confinement for a few days isn't a problem. What people have an issue with, and is unfortunately a very common practice, is when a prisoner is placed into solitary confinement for weeks at a time, or indefinitely. That is a form of torture.

I could replace "excites" with "interests", "relaxes" or some other state changing term.

> If it's boring, then something is done wrong.

I have a problem with the tone of this statement, because I've seen it taken to an extreme and it can be a dangerous idea.

A better way of looking at it is: If something is boring, take it as a sign there might be an opportunity to improve the process, but you have to be acutely aware the problems that automation can introduce.

There's a phenomenon I like to call premature automation. When you work on a problem the boring way long enough, your brain learns the patterns. Premature automation happens when you skip learning about or experiencing the process and you shoot straight to automation. Often what happens is the automation fails to anticipate important edge cases.

> You can always automate the boring parts, and thinking about automation is less boring.

Thinking about automation is less boring because it's not trivial. Automation can be trivial if you're doing simple things like code generation, but often these simple things come at a cost. For example, code generation typically becomes more complex as the need for customizations and exceptions popup.

Libraries can automate things at runtime, but writing good libraries based on timeless/minimally leaky ideas takes time. Leaky libraries built on a poor foundation tends to introduce bugs or complexity. There is value in boring, predictable code with minimal dependencies. It's easier to audit and review with static analysis tools, it's harder to introduce cascading bugs and it.

TLDR: I'm all for automation, but saying "If it's boring, something is done wrong" and "you can always automate the boring parts" sounds like a cocktail of developer shaming for not doing something that's "simple".

Note that the inverse is not true: If it's exciting, you could still be doing something wrong. (Watch any junior hire with day-one ideas to "improve" the codebase.)

I was just thinking about it last night: I went for a run, which is a little unusual for me, and I was similarly "time free" as most nights but a lot less bored. I felt my ideas/internal state was more interesting/entertaining, perhaps due to changes in my neurotransmitters caused by exercise.

That's when you should reach out to Alan Watts, George Carlin,e.t.c. if they could help you.

Boredom != Contemplation, Introspection, Reflection