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Can boredom make you more creative?
Appreciating things being dull as heck and what this can do for your creative practice.
When things slow down and I find myself on my own with nothing to do, it’s easy to fill that silence. In fact, filling that space is a habit, executed without really thinking about it at all. I immediately seek out a podcast or an audiobook or a YouTube video. I let the noise of those things fill the background of my time.
I wrote recently about feeling overwhelmed in the noise of the world, but beyond managing my anxiety levels, there’s a great reason to block that noise out: creating the opportunity for boredom. Now, why would I want to do that?
There are lots of studies that suggest being bored is good for creativity. But I want to dig a bit deeper (beyond stats and studies) and think about this as a practitioner; I want to think about this as someone who feels boredom start up, and acts first, squashing that feeling out of existence, and then thinking second. What if I did something different? What if I just lean in to being bored?
