This is boring

We can’t live alone, we keep looking for people, social media hooks and infinite scrolls… is it really that boring to spend time with our own mind? Is mind inside our mind really boring? Are we bored of ourselves?

Picture credit: The Scientific Benefits of Boredom — Veritasium YouTube channel

Recently, Derek Muller (host of YouTube channel Veritasium) posted a video named “The Scientific Benefits of Boredom”. I would recommend you to watch the video first before reading my blog any further. That video is deep enough to cause frisson in body. After watching the video you may realize that our phones are separating us from the essence of reality and for most of us, that flat piece of glass contains a magic which is more appealing to touch than touching our partners. That video shaped a lot of my concepts of looking at boredom and motivated me to write this blog.

Before proceeding any further, please note that the video was targeted on the boredom and not mind wandering. Although the video was pretty good on explaining boredom, it barely scratches the wide field of mind wandering. More parameters should be considered while directly relating mind wandering and creativity. In this blog, I will dive a little deeper into the state of boredom, mind-wandering, creativity and its seemingly contrasting effects with meditation.

After seeing that video, I kept my phone aside and sat with my thoughts. I let my mind wander freely. I remembered how I used to be a guy who loved to be alone and get bored, I used to get completely consumed in my imaginative world before going to bed. It was also my common activity to save myself from being bored during a shower.

“Let the wise guard their thoughts, which are difficult to perceive, extremely subtle, and wander at will” — Buddha

I guess the quote explains very well that our mind should wander at our will, our consciousness shouldn’t be something which is controlled by our habits. As Derek explained in the video wandering mind plays an important role in examining our actions for a better future. A highly conscious attempt to wandering can indeed require high cognition level. Conversely, using smartphones needs no effort. Sometimes we don’t even realize that our muscle memory keeps on scrolling our social media feed and we are actually paying no attention to the posts. But wait for a second, allowing the mind to wander when we have nothing to do seems living in an “unrealistic world”. It is equivalent to running away from reality. So what’s the catch? Upon thinking of different ways mind wandering can be connected with other existing solutions of boredom, I realised that the concept isn’t easy as it may seem. That video forced me to browse internet to solve the firing doubts in my mind… like why mind wandering is considered good or bad and how it boosts our creativity? If mindfulness reduces mind wandering, then does that mean it reduces creativity? Isn’t this paradoxical? After reading some research papers and articles across the web, here are my conclusions on this debatable topic:

• Boredom can be helpful, but not always. Our perception towards boredom affects how we respond to it. It is our choice to be calm and feel our thoughts or to just get irritated by boredom.
• Once in a while, “consciously” letting the mind wander can prove to be good for you.
• Spontaneous (unconscious) mind wandering negatively affects the performance while performing any task.
• Mindfulness helps in reducing spontaneous mind wandering.
• Mind wandering and mindfulness approach the creativity from different ends and more study is needed in this area. We don’t have enough data points to make any claim regarding their intersection area.
• Scrolling social media is training your mind to run away from your thoughts. Scroll and reward is a never-ending loop. It is important to consciously act on such behaviour. Otherwise, with flying time it will get harder to break the loop. We can’t deny the science: “neurons that fire together wire together!”
• In my view, the bigger picture is about maintaining full focus on any single task we are performing. Scrolling Instagram won’t consume your focus, but mind wandering does require you to think hard. Mindfulness makes us available fully for our current task and thus improves our well being and happiness level. Mindfulness is enjoying anything with our full potential, be it a wandering mind.
• Don’t just read, implement it! Next time be bored than unlocking the phone.

Now I feel that mediation isn’t just being in the present moment, it is any task performed with full attention and dedication, may it be simply sitting in a quiet place, walking, eating or maybe mind wandering, it is just making a conscious feedback loop across our thoughts.

Thanks Derek for making such an awesome video, his YouTube channels are impressive and worth subscribing.

I would love to know your thoughts on this topic. Let’s talk in the comment section.

If you are interested in further reading, I would recommend reading these research papers:

1. Agnoli, Sergio, et al. “Exploring the link between mind wandering, mindfulness, and creativity: A multidimensional approach.” Creativity Research Journal 30.1 (2018): 41–53.
2. Zedelius, Claire M., and Jonathan W. Schooler. “Mind wandering “Ahas” versus mindful reasoning: alternative routes to creative solutions.” Frontiers in psychology 6 (2015): 834.
3. Schooler, Jonathan W., et al. “The middle way: Finding the balance between mindfulness and mind-wandering.” Psychology of learning and motivation. Vol. 60. Academic Press, 2014. 1–33.