Hacker News Reader

Comment by daveslash | Hacker News Reader

I was so bored this past weekend, and it was great. Every year I volunteer to backpack into the desert mountains of Southern California, sit in one spot for 3 full days, and count all of the Bighorn Sheep that I see. There's typically a total of an hour of excitement each day, and the rest is just sitting, staring at a mountainside. No cell reception, no human made structures visible, just two other people there with me. I recommend that everyone find something similar in their own lives.

View on HN

If I had to sit for 3 days watching the mountains and the occasional sheep passing by, I would probably turn to meditation or continue planning my project in my mind.

Which is precisely why boredom is important. It can lead to some truly creative thoughts.

But if you are meditating or thinking about work, are you bored?

I don't think I've felt bored in decades precisely because I have so many things I like to think about. I'm not sure I could even turn that stuff off to actually feel bored any more.

>if you are meditating or thinking about work, are you bored?

You are doing those things to escape boredom. The idea isn’t to stay in a perpetual state of boredom. The point is to induce boredom, so that it pushes you towards doing things you wouldn’t normally do, in order to escape it.

I suppose if I dedicated enough time to it (like a multi-day silent retreat), boredom would eventually come.

That makes sense. If I just stay bored, I probably start daydreaming and nothing comes of it.

> The point is to induce boredom

Still doesn't sound like a great idea.

Seems to work for a lot of people, including me.

"Inducing boredom" doesn't mean "sit down in your apartment like you normally would, but force yourself to do nothing and get bored just because." I always understood it as "put yourself in an environment with limited options, so that you would feel more encouraged to do something productive/creative that you always wanted to do (but couldn't due to all the outside distraction/overstimulation) in order to escape boredom."

I feel this way too. Maybe I misinterpreted the article but I almost felt guilty for never feeling bored. Even though I'm never bored not out of technological stimulation but rather my own internal mental stimulation. Full of ideas and thoughts and things to think more on or things to discover, areas of life I have not yet given the time to think about.

Humans were built like this. We must spend time going back to our ape surroundings. Give yourself at least an hour to walk through wilderness with no music, no celphone, just walk and take nature in. God is in nature.

I would absolutely love to take a few hours to relax stroll through a remote peaceful strip of nature or land, but the problem is it all either:

- a public park with too many people / other distractions

- and individuals private property

- a corporations private / leased property

Look for "difficult" hiking trails in your area, pretending you're a tourist. Choose one that isn't especially popular and go early in the morning to avoid other people. You're guaranteed a trail, the right to walk there, and some exercise.

I highly recommend this episode of the art of manliness podcast if you like that kind of things:

https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/fire-watcher-philip-...

Adding in: read Dharma Bums, which partially involves fire watching.

Or better yet, Desolation Angels, where a solid half of the book is fire watching

“Every year I volunteer to backpack into the desert mountains of Southern California, sit in one spot for 3 full days, and count all of the Bighorn Sheep that I see. “

Where is this if I may ask? And how many sheep do you get to see? I wouldn’t mind doing that and take my camera.

Re: Where is this? -- Anza Borrego Desert State Park.

Re: How many sheep -- Depends on your count site; some people see zero, others see upwards of 40.

See this HN comment (from this same thread) for additional info. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20384971

Oh great, I've actually been there and saw two bighorn sheep near the "oasis" that is not too far from the visitor center. It was super hot there, actually (42°C or so?). Probably my most extreme heat exposure ever.

Thanks! I hope they don’t do this in the summer. Pretty hot there.

The best time is the summer; the hotter the better. These sheep can go for weeks without water when it's cool. When it's hot, they need to come to water every 3 days or so. So, when it's hot, we set up shop near the watering holes and wait.

Very interesting and makes sense. I guess the heat is not too bad if you don’t have to move a lot. Is there a lot of action at night? I would probably set up some trail cameras.

And once you can do that, take it to the next level: stare at your apartment wall for 3 days and count the insects, with no other people. That would be hard and true boredom!

Could you share information on where/how to volunteer to do this?

This is a great KPBS piece from 3 years ago. https://www.kpbs.org/news/2016/jul/08/sheep-counting-anza-bo...

This is a great KQED piece from 2 years ago. https://www.kqed.org/news/11550455/volunteers-brave-extremes...

Edit: I'm happy to share and am available for further questions, but for anyone planning to visit the any parts of the Southern California desert during the summer, please please don't plan to go all out on your first visit. Please take a measured approach. For example: an overnight car-camping trip before you attempt a backpacking trip. When you're new to the summer-desert, plan on carrying one-gallon-per-person of water for a hike of any length, even if it's less than a mile; it can save your life if you unexpectedly get heat exhaustion when it's over 115F.

Edit II: To volunteer, e-mail AB.Sheepcount AT parks.ca.gov -- express your interest in the 2020 census and they'll put you on the mailing list. If you'd like more information, reply to this comment and we'll work out how to chat directly.

How do I find more of these sort of events...? I'm in the midwest and would be honored to do something like this.

To be honest, I'm not sure how to find them. I somewhat fell into this one, but the term to search is "citizen science". https://www.citizenscience.gov/catalog has a catalog of Federal events. The one I do is more at the state level. There are also non-profits that often work closely with regional state and national parks.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com