Bored? Good.
Why you need to let yourself be bored
For the past few months, I’ve been struggling.
When I tried to describe to my therapist how it felt to be disconnected to my creativity, I explained that it felt like it was right behind me, but I couldn’t access it.
Like I knew it was there, but it was stuck to my back, so every time I tried to turn around and see it, it stayed out of my field of vision. It’s been incredibly frustrating, even heartbreaking.
So I had the sense that I was getting in my own way (this is a thing I do, and if you read this newsletter, something I imagine you do as well) but I wasn’t sure how.
I knew I had to start by understanding where the block was coming from. The first spark of recognition I felt came from this quote from If You Want to Write by Brenda Ueland (and yes I sent it last month, but I’m sending it again because it’s so powerful):
“I discovered that you should feel when writing, not like Lorn Byron on a mountain top, but like a child stringing beads in kindergarten–happy, absorbed, and quietly putting one bead on after another.”
When was the last time I’d felt that?
I decided to start there. When I did, I realized that the last time I’d truly felt happy and absorbed was in my early 20s.
I imagined myself at that time—always lugging around two or three books and a sketchbook shoved in a giant purse or backpack. Wandering around bookstores, libraries, and museums, either on college campuses or in various Northern California downtowns. Without kids, in and out of college, and often between jobs, I had what now feels like unending stretches of unoccupied time. One of my favorite things to do was get a coffee and find a tree to draw, or find a comfy chair at a bookstore or coffee shop and get lost in a book for hours.
And you know what else? I’m about to turn 44, so this would have been around 2002-2008. I didn’t have a smartphone. I didn’t even have predictive texting. I just called people, but only when I had to.
(I bet you’ve already guessed where we’re headed but stay with me, I have a very specific point).
During those long stretches of free time, there was nothing occupying my attention. My mind was allowed to wander. I had time to get bored.
Not that I enjoy boredom – I actually have a pretty low tolerance for boredom – but it made me wonder — when was the last time I’d felt bored and hadn’t immediately pulled out my phone to remedy the situation?
My next step was to try and duplicate the experience of my early 20s. It isn’t practical for me to get rid of my phone altogether, but I drastically limited what I had access to on it. No social media apps at all, no games, no streaming, nothing but email, my calendar, and actual phone functions.
I also set aside whole mornings or afternoons, four hours minimum, with zero screens. No phone at all. No computer, tablet, or TV either.
I mentioned this in my last newsletter – I call it Special Projects time. The rules are that I can write, but I don’t have to. I can draw, I can read, I can take a walk, I can do a craft.
And in a startlingly short amount of time, I noticed a huge difference. I spontaneously wrote a flash fiction story. I started drawing on the edges of my notebooks – something I used to do all the time, but that I haven’t done in probably at least ten years. I learned a new knit stitch (although my knitting is still really terrible). I felt story ideas stirring. I hadn’t felt that in a long time.
I also felt hope, and I hadn’t felt that in a long time, either.
This discovery led to some bigger changes and decisions for me, which I’ll talk more about in my next email.
