Embrace boredom

Cong Corrales

“When you pay attention to boredom, it gets unbelievably interesting.” -Jon Kabat-Zinn

NOBODY seems to be bored anymore. Everywhere I look, people seem to be tinkering with something. You rarely see anybody just sit on a bench in the park just taking in the moment.

I’m bringing this up because at least two of my friends sent me a private message of a link on what stress can do to the brain. My immediate response was that people burn out because they rarely have time to be bored.

I present that the culprit of this modern phenomena is the smartphone.

According to Suchi Rudra in her article “Boredom”: Embrace it or escape it, “the average smartphone user checks their phone at least 150 times a day more than half that time it’s not because someone is texting or calling.”

We just fidget with it. We check it when we’re riding the taxi, jeepney or bus. We check it while we are sipping our favorite beverages. Hell, I bet you see this all the time: people walking while texting or worse, posting on Facebook and tweeting something. The smartphone has turned people into zombies.

There have been movies positing that a zombie apocalypse will be brought about by some groundbreaking drug (i.e. World War Z, I am Legend). Well, I submit the zombie apocalypse is here and it is brought to us by the ever-dependable smartphone.

We have been distracted so much and engaged with the inanities of social media that we stopped listening to our thoughts. The least of it is letting our mind wander.

I admit. I have become one of the smartphone zombies out there. Although, I still have the common sense to stop walking when replying to a text message.

Still, this disturbed me.

Last week, I was meeting a friend from UP Diliman at VIP Hotel and I told Da King to drop me off at Cogon. I thought of riding a motorela to the hotel. But the thought that I will inexplicably be fidgeting with my smartphone once my ass lands on that seat made me decide otherwise.

I decided to walk the from Cogon to the hotel. I walked through the streets Doña Nieves, Domingo Velez, Corrales, then Monte Carlo. I passed by the old Iglesia Filipina Independiente Cathedral.

While walking, my smartphone was securely tucked in my pocket and I didn’t even stop for a smoke. I must say that the walk did me good. The flood of memories came rushing in my mind.

I remember playing in a junk shop at Doña Nieves street. I remember biking with my cousin the entire length of Corrales street, avenue, and extension when I was still in grade school. I remember meeting football friends in Monte Carlo. Those guys there really, I mean really love football. And of course, the compound at Domingo Velez where I practically grew up. I remember the fruitcakes that Lola Puring would bring out at about this time of the year.

Boredom and burnout are correlated as some psychology books suggest. Burnout is the result of doing too much and boredom is a result of doing too little.

So a thought came to my mind. Maybe boredom isn’t as bad after all. All the structured thinking you do at work and even playing Wordscapes can tire your brains out at some point. Smartphones have become the convenient alibi to avoid our deepest inner thoughts.

Organized religion has also contributed to this fear of being idle. Remember the saying, “An idle mind is the devil’s workshop”? I say being idle once in while lets your mind romp through trains of thought. I bet you can even strike a brainstorm.

When you feel you’re starting to get bored, don’t pick up your smartphone. Don’t pick up anything, not even a book.

Embrace boredom. Your mind will automatically defragment the “bad sectors” of your hard drive (read: brain) from the constant structured thinking.

Again, embrace boredom or risk burning out too young.