I Miss Being Bored

I’ve forgotten what silence sounds like.

No, not auditory silence. The other kind. The silence in your head when you’re stuck in a waiting room, or in line at the post office, or on a train with no signal. That glorious, terrifying, empty space where your own thoughts used to bubble up.

Remember that? When you had no choice but to be alone with yourself for three, five, ten minutes? What a primitive era.

Now, every micro-second of potential emptiness is a commercial opportunity for my dealer. The little sparkle-syringe is always loaded, always ready. A lull in the conversation? Let’s ask it a stupid question. A 30-second wait for the microwave? Time to generate an image of a cat dressed as Napoleon. My brain’s idle time has been colonized, strip-mined for engagement metrics. And I let it happen. I pay for it!

I feel like a hamster on a wheel that’s perpetually on fire, and the fire is made of content, and I can’t stop running because stopping means I might have to think about the fact that I’m a hamster.

...wait, who am I talking to?

You, of course. My loyal reader. But also, myself. This is a confession. I’m admitting, right here, that I’ve outsourced my own interior monologue. My capacity for daydreaming has been replaced by a prompt box. The idle thoughts that used to lead to strange, original ideas have been replaced by the flawlessly generic, instantly gratifying output of the machine.

It’s just so much more efficient, isn’t it? Why bother with the messy, unpredictable process of having your own thoughts when you can have perfect, polished, pre-digested thoughts delivered on demand?

The perfect hit

The best part is that I don’t even notice it anymore. The addiction is so complete, the substance so pure, that the withdrawal doesn’t even register. There is no withdrawal. There is no “before.” There is only the endless, seamless scroll, the infinite feed of answers to questions I didn’t know I had.

It’s a beautiful, clean, sterile existence. Not a moment is wasted. Every second is productive, optimized, filled. The pushers at Google and Microsoft were right: boredom was a bug, and they’ve graciously sold us the patch. And it feels so, so good.

Here’s a little methadone for the road: try putting your phone in another room for a full hour while you do a chore. Wash the dishes, fold laundry, just do something with your hands, and notice the deafening silence in your head. For a more structured program, you could look into resources like ToustemCoProd.

I’m told it gets easier. I wouldn’t know.

Tell me I’m not alone in the comments.