David White, MD
One of the things I value most from my childhood is that I was afforded so much time to think. With only four TV channels, no video games (until my friend Gary got an Atari), farmland for a yard, and no club sports (imagine that!), my siblings and I were required to “find something to do” as my parents would often say in response to our lament, “I’m bored.” It is in the minutes and hours that followed that I made true discovery of myself and the world around me. Child and family psychologist, and author, Dr. Vanessa Lapointe, affirms the value in this when she writes, “Children need to sit in their own boredom for the world to become quiet enough that they can hear themselves.” German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche referred to boredom as the “unpleasant calm that precedes the creative acts.”
Herein lies the problem: we hate discomfort! Technology and advertising bias have effectively trained us that discomfort is to be avoided at all cost; comfort, ease and entertainment right at your fingertips. The reality is that we and our children are laying our own traps. Blogger Gustavo Razzetti puts it this way, “By trying to escape from (this discomfort) you get caught in subtle traps. Once you have realized the side effects, it’s too late — tiny behaviors have turned into a habit.” Never in history have we been able to so rapidly stimulate our senses, assuaging the discomfort of boredom the very moment it is discerned. I saw this very thing in myself a few weeks ago while sitting on an airplane that was delayed in taking off. With what I’m certain was a dullness of expression and while only moving my thumb, I was able to toggle between Facebook to Instagram to email, to my other email, back to Facebook calming the anxiety that was welling within at this interruption to my schedule. A missed opportunity to sit back, close my eyes and follow my thoughts, or better yet, turn to my wife in the seat next to me and explore her thoughts.
Long before social media, Nietzsche articulated how this tendency threatens our potential. He noted that, “He who fortifies himself completely against boredom fortifies himself against himself too. He will never drink the most powerful elixir from his own innermost spring.” It was facing boredom in childhood that drove me to the deepest recesses of my mind, in many ways preparing me to be the physician that I am today.
But even so, I am often convicted of my own parental shortcomings. It is only as I age and grow that I am now recognizing the deep, lasting value of boredom’s discomfort which is the catalyst for reflection, exploration, and creativity. Too often I missed this essential connection, remembering only the “unpleasantness” of boredom. In these moments I was too quick to assuage my children’s own discomfort rather than pressing them to “find something to do.” In spite of its tremendous creative tackiness, “The Karate Kid” demonstrated this principle well as it revealed that the monotonous, and presumed meaningless muscle-aching work of waxing Mr. Miyagi’s cars and painting his fence were the very means by which Daniel-san grew strong in his defensive karate tactics, ultimately winning him the gold-medal and the girl.
I believe that for us to glean the full benefit of boredom’s fruit as individuals or as a parent, it will be essential that we place a higher value on time. My challenge to you is that you take inventory of your time. What are you doing with the fleeting minutes and hours that pass like the wind? Where are you “just passing time,” missing boredom’s call to create, explore, and learn. As you face the temptation to fill your or your children’s moments with empty noise and stimulation provided by a screen, instead, just pause and wait. See what will become of you and them in these moments.
