Late Night Musings: What is "Bored," Anyway?

Because I happen to be "one of those people" who tends to do the same thing a lot, and don't necessarily seek a lot of variety in my life, I periodically have people ask me "don't you ever get bored?"

Truth be known, I can't ever remember really having been bored! I'm not even sure what bored feels like...

I definitely recognize that for most people, having your brain go slack or there being nothing going on is not a positive experience. I also know - from years of being in the field of psychology - that a lot of people are incredibly uncomfortable being alone with their thoughts.

For me, it's almost exactly the opposite. When my brain goes quiet and there are no thoughts I feel the most at peace. Being alone with myself and with my own thoughts is a welcome place to be not a scary one.

Conversely, frequent and sudden adrenaline spikes are, in fact, not exciting for me; more than anything they are overwhelming and unwelcome. I firmly believe that we humans tend to do things that feel rewarding to us, and having these adrenaline rushes is not a positive reward in my world.

One of the things I find interesting and puzzling about the whole "boredom" discussion is the fact that so many people spend great amounts of money on counseling and meditation workshops to do the exact thing that I just happen to do by choice... which is to sit still and not think about anything and not do anything.

If I am to interpret that correctly, these are people who say that they don't like being bored, and yet they're paying some Guru in a diaper large sums of money to be taught how to be bored... at least as measured by them?

That just strikes me as plain silly!

Without a doubt, I think my relationship with not being bored, and not minding being by myself with nothing going on, is a result of my childhood in which there very rarely was anything going on and most of the time I had to entertain myself.

Because there were generally no other children around, I had to invent games that I could play inside my head, with myself. After all, my parents would show up and tell me off if I started making too much noise or if I was running through the house.

So, I suppose, a large part of my contentment in being "bored" is really just a repetition of what I was familiar with growing up and recognizing that it's actually a comfort zone of sorts for me.

I don't know if people could make the argument that it would be "good for me" to get more outside myself and go out and do things. Truth be known I do go outside and do things from time to time, and I don't have any issues with such things as social anxiety or social avoidance, and I certainly don't dislike people but I just find the whole practice exhausting and not particularly rewarding.

Which just goes to show that some folks are more people oriented than others, and some people are more social than others. And in that funny way in which the universe has a sense of humor I do find it slightly ironic that my mother was one of life's great Social Butterflies of the world and I am the exact opposite of her!

I find myself writing these words as we close in on the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday which is definitely a festival and a people oriented event, and even though I very much like our friends who are going to be here for the day I still have to psych myself up to be ready to be "on" for a while.

And such use the life of the introvert!

Thanks for stopping by, and I hope you have a marvelous remainder of your week!

How about you? Are you a very social person? Do you mind being alone with your own thoughts?
Leave a comment if you feel so inclined — share your experiences — be part of the conversation!

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Created at 2023.11.21 01:15 PST
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