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Comment by caiobegotti | Hacker News Reader

We know, now as ever, that boredom is far from the worst that people will experience during this pandemic. Descartes reminds us that boredom can also be a privilege. For boredom allows the mind to wander, to rest on an idea longer than it would otherwise have, to start off on a road which leads to habits of attention.

The other day I mentioned to a friend that many people we both know say they are struggling with isolation and lack of something exciting happening and we both concluded that they are the same people that, it seemed to us, never reserve time for their own thoughts and probably are finding this whole boredom privilege quite painful because they are finally forced to pay attention to the person inside their minds, and that can be frightening I suppose. To some people that can easily become the worst experience during this pandemic.

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It is not so much frightening to be inside own mind. These people thrive on things happening and lack of sensory input and lack of feelings and lack or anything you could think about and lack of place to spend energy makes them suffer.

I don't know why people project fear on others lately all the time or project deep scary depths. Sometimes it is simply that quick change makes you suffer.

>Sometimes it is simply that quick change makes you suffer.

Falling out of your comfortable routine can cause some immediate suffering. Continuing to suffer months later is a different matter.

Isolation and loneliness and lack of sensory input is harder the longer it goes.

You need years of preparation of social network able to help you cope, not like two months.

Or you could talk to your neighbors, call your family, and spend time on a hobby. People aren't in solitary confinement here.

I think the reason for it is grounded in theories of causation in human emotions/behaviors: there are a number of behaviors which are deemed to behave like 'symptoms' in that they are effectively determined by a smaller set of underlying emotions, e.g. fear.

Part of the idea, from what I can tell, is that the emotion (e.g. fear) in many cases doesn't appear at the surface level because it is "unacceptable" to a person, so their mind/brain assists in disguising it. But—the symptoms it causes are still there, hence this process of associating (visible) symptom sets to (non-visible) root causes, so that a non-superficial way of dealing with the problem might be recommended.

Or maybe it is simply shaming and dominance thing. Fear is used to emasculate and shoe the supposedly afraid person as lesser.

Like with masks - those opposed them like to frame wearing them as fear "I will not be afraid". It is never responsibility, caution nor fashion nor "who cares why not". It must be fear, because it shames.

I think it really depends on the state of your life. Anyone with some major underlying issues that they've been ignoring is bound to have trouble being alone with their own thoughts. The same might apply to those with smaller problems that they find hard to deal with.

However, people who tend to reflect on themselves and the life they lead, will find it easier to adjust. Also, I'd presume stuff like personality types matters too. It's more difficult for someone who's used to being around people and sharing everything with them to switch to isolation.

"They are finally forced to pay attention to the person inside their minds ... and that can be frightening I suppose."

Or they start comparing their own internal values to those they see in the world and are truly disgusted by what they see.

Secondly, society and the economy are the systems demanding people never take a break. How many job descriptions require being able to "multi-task" or being "self-driven"?

I find it a bit sickening to see people reflecting these deep societal issues back on these individuals, as if it were their fault.

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