“You Need to Be Bored. Here’s Why.”
One day I’ll self-actualise.
I came across a video of a Harvard professor stating that a lack of boredom correlates to depression— our constant fixation on everything all at once; the loudest headlines; the shiniest, sloppiest microtrends; the pornier, well-rounded corners of the media; the mass produced clothes, processed food, superficial social life, pushing to failure at the gym.
Distractions from ourselves.
— But we wanted that, no? To escape from the boundless berating of the wandering mind and preoccupy it — to fill its grooves and wrinkles with the next distraction, stimulate its neurons, manipulate the brain down to the synapse as we try to bridge a gap that is meant to be ‘broken’.
More improvement! Like a rat.
More validation! In a cage.
More pills! In a lab.
I confide in Maslow: when all of your needs are fulfilled, you’ll grasp at straws for the next itch to scratch, live for the fix, until it bleeds and festers.
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What tier in his hierarchy have I lost?
It could be the absence of boredome, endless preoccupation, my boundless berating, but I feel apathy. I see the rot in everything. I can’t remember the last time I was bored, but I can remember flocking to my socials to forget effort and consume my dreams through others’ videos and learn nothing, compare everything.
“If I don’t sacrifice for what I want, what I want will become my sacrifice.”
Everything must be perfect and poised and genius — so I procrastinate on social media to ‘inspire myself’ and avoid my unattainable standards. When I can escape from my responsibilities, I still can’t escape my mind, so I allow these cash-cow-people-milking-machine corporations take it from me, let it sink — a ship fit to sail beds of sand, made of splintered planks and rusted nails.
Really, I should paint more, make more art and music and write and connect with nature more, spend less time at desks. But I won’t, because I have all these other things to do first, and suddenly it’s 10:28 and I have two minutes until I need to lie in bed, finish today’s perfect, ritualistic (sacrificial) routine, pregnant with regret. I can feel it clawing inside me. Feline. I think it has ticks.
I’m afraid of parasites, but I won’t recognise the infestation that is already there.
Once I’ve become the most skilled carpenter, though, I can, tear the ship apart plank by plank.
Replace the nails.
Sand it down and polish it.
I’ll have the prettiest ship — driven by guilt and regret, denser than water.
