The Antidote To Boredom

Johnny Cash's "One Piece at a Time" car.
Storyteller's Farm & Museum
Photo: Gary Firstenberg.

When I first heard someone share John Updike's notion of four life forces -- love, habit, time and boredom -- I found myself inwardly scoffing at the last of these, boredom. Why? Because at the time I said to myself, "I'm never bored. There is always way more to do than there is time. I have more books, more projects, more aspirations than I will ever accomplish."

Since that time, though, I have come to see that boredom has played a bigger factor in my life than I'd previously realized. And perhaps this is true for you, too.

I'll give an example. 

When I first began experimenting with AI art applications, I was mesmerized by what they can do. I didn't want to go to sleep at night because I want to play with these new toys. I had one of these apps on my iPhone and tried out every feature. I used a couple others on m laptop that were even more stupefying. (Here are examples of things I created with AI assistance.)

After a while, though, being "blown away" by these images--and the speed with which they can be produced--lost some of its luster. How is it that making mind-blowing images can so quickly become boring? 

One reason is that it's too easy... The illustrations are still very cool, and I like making them for this blog, but there is no real challenge. 

What I began to realize is that when we stop challenging ourselves, things get boring. Even life can get boring. Behind this thought is the real culprit. We are afraid to fail. Fear of failure paralyzes us, so we don't write the book that is in us or learn a new language or whatever it is that we'd like to achieve. So we lower the bar. That is, we lower our expectations so we're not disappointed. 

The antidote to boredom, therefore, is to have goals that challenge us. Go big! The bigger the better.

Here's a blog post I wrote along these lines in 2011. Maybe it will speak to you: Start a Huge Foolish Project. 

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