What is boredom?

[Rob Fox]

Hi,

For some research we are doing for a client, I'd love to read your responses to this question....

What is boredom?

Thanks.

Rob
www.engagingideas.co.uk

[Mike King]

Ya basically. It's an easy way to recognize who keeps themselves challenged and who doesn't. Think of your friends, family and colleagues, do some of them ever say they are bored? Are they the people you tend to consider to be super creative, I would guess not. That is not what I have experienced anyway. I find the people I know to be most creative (and it seems to be the case for great inventors and famous scientist, musicians, etc), that they just don't get bored.

[David Zinger]

Here is a little poem by Piet Hein's Grooks on exhaustion but I think there is a little incentive about boredom too:

THE CURE FOR EXHAUSTION

Sometimes, exhausted
with toil and endeavour,
I wish I could sleep
for ever and ever;
but then this reflection
my longing allays:
I shall be doing it
one of these days.

[Mike King]

Nice one David! I personally love the saying, "I'll sleep when I'm dead" so I can definitely latch onto that.

[Rob Fox]

Hi David,

Nice one. From another source I have had this answer to the question

What is boredom....

Making another piece of toast!

Maybe the answer better appeals to the British amongst us!

[Ian Buckingham]

I've been subconsciously following the thread here and at first believed Rob had the last laugh as it is, in effect, an exercise in boredom itself. A provocative case study in having nothing better to do LOL!

I then remembered an exercise I sometimes run with leadership teams called the Manager game. The long and the short of it is that groups of "managers" of equal status are divided into two groups. They are taken into two rooms and given an identical brief with a simple scenario and task. The only difference is that one is called "briefing for managers", the other "briefing for staff". Without fail, the managers lock the door and set about "solving the problem". The "staff" sit about waiting for the managers until - Yes! here's the link - they become bored! When they reach their threshold they start to invent ways to become productive somehow, which usually includes going to find the "managers"!

Proves the point that boredom can be productive!

[David Zinger]

Who knew boredom would generate so much interest?

[Rob Fox]

David and Ian,

Quite. It is an interesting subject - moreso because it is one that the corporate world finds difficult to talk about. People, it seems, find it hard to freely admit boredom - albeit that experience evidences that there are a lot of bored people holding down work roles. To admit being bored seems for many to be synonymous with a sense of failure?

For me, boredom, whilst one solid opposite of engagement, also has purpose.

It seems that many people - judging from the responses here and from other sites - think this too - that boredom has a psychological utility - in that it, ultimately, leads people somewhere else.

There is a beautiful essay on boredom by Adam Phillips in his book called "On kissing, tickling and being bored," which is an inspiring read for those intrigued by the subject.

Best,

R.
www.engagingideas.co.uk