Everyone Is Tired and No One Is Bored

How did sitting with yourself become an act of resistance?

Oct 21, 2024

I’ve estimated that I’ve spent about 40% of my life staring at a screen. I watch shows, movies, scroll on a feed, play games and don’t even look up to see if I’ll run into someone on the sidewalk or get hit by some guy on an electric scooter. The moment I walk outside I plug my earphones in and turn the world off. I’ve been doing all this since the seventh grade and I’ve loved every single second of it.

I’ve had everything I’ve ever needed at the tip of my fingers and for the past month I’ve been bored. I wake up in the morning and don’t scroll on my phone. I walk to the metro and sit the entire ride without my earphones on. I let my eyes wander and listen to the world and I get so so bored.

I started this boredom process so I could begin writing think pieces and reading books again (I write this as my phone is hidden under a pillow so I won’t get distracted and leave this piece unfinished). By the end of the month, I realized that not much had changed. I got used to the sounds of the world and no longer jumped at the sounds of cars driving past me. I would get on the metro and stare into the abyss only to realize why I love listening to music so much: my eyes now wander around blindly and invite people to talk to me. I no longer have an excuse for ignoring people I know in the streets. Men ask me for directions and I have to respond.

There comes a time when all the pictures, videos, and texts my brain has absorbed no longer serve me creatively but work against me instead. I don’t feel like I have original thoughts, instead, I turn to an algorithm to keep my brain active. I go to tweet an intrusive thought until I realize that’s where I got the intrusive thought in the first place. I have to glue my arms down and fix my head toward the TV while I watch an episode of Industry to fight the urge to pick up my phone and complete a crossword. My brain is active but I have no thoughts and my hearing is shot. All because I’m scared of being bored.

Chris Stedman on X: "https://t.co/WhN5QHMb1E" / X

I can tell I’m not the only one who craves boredom. So much of Gen Z is stuck between two worlds. One is fake and full of friends and @still_on_a_downward_spiral memes. One is real and full of us talking about memes. We want to go to movie theatres so we can be forced to pay attention to the big screen. We want physical media back so we can read words on paper. We roll our eyes when someone speaks like they’ve spent too many hours online. This summer people were bragging about raw-dogging flights with no phone, book, or in-flight entertainment. We talk to each other with amazement about how we’ve decreased our screen time by 15% and read for an hour before going to bed. How much more do we have to do until inducing boredom is no longer a bragging right?

We film ourselves doing everyday tasks so even that has reached its peak. Instagram likes have reached an all-time low. A picture of your cocktail is doomed to get lost in between think pieces, OOTDs, and GRWMs. We want our favourite celebrities to take us on a tour of their daily lives so we can watch them from our beds. We all talk about the same things and people on Substack complain about the same essays being written over and over again. We’re completely trapped in this brain-fogging echo chamber with no way to get out except to turn it all off.

I talk a lot about my stress of not being able to consume every piece of media in my lifetime for someone who lives in the prime era of overconsumption. I watch TV with my phone in my hand so I can scroll on Instagram at the same time. The algorithm makes me watch Subway Surfers while they throw glass jars in one corner and do their makeup in the other. And it’s still not enough for me. I can’t fast-forward on Instagram reels. I press the left side and the video just pauses just for me to see my mouth agape in my reflection. To let the video play at 1x speed takes patience I never knew I’d be annoyed by. My thumb scrolls over and over again and suddenly an hour has passed by and I’m exhausted. But I have nothing else to do so I might as well be told what to think.

When I get overstimulated from the Instagram reels hole I find myself in I kind of wish I was using a really old computer to take a breather between clicks but I know I’d immediately smash it to the ground at the first sight of a sand timer curser.

Earlier this year my friend gifted me The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It’s a self-help book published in 1992 that guides you through a 12-week program to recover your creative self. I’ve heard all sorts of reviews of it from “it’s helped me so much” to “some of the things she makes you do are a little much”. She introduces you to two pivotal tools for “creative recovery”: writing three pages in your journal, first thing in the morning, every day (the morning pages) and setting aside two hours during your week to nurture your artistic self (the artist date). If you complete your steps alongside the homework she introduces week-by-week, you should the artist within you should be reinvigorated.

By week four of the program, I came to a standstill: she suggested a reading deprivation. No reading for the entire week.

“For most artists, words are like tiny tranquilizers. We have a daily quota of media chat that we swallow up. Like greasy food, it clogs our system. Too much of it and we feel, yes, fried.” (page 87)

At the time, I was on a reading grind and mad. How dare she force me out of my reading time, the only moment I take a break from my screen. I was shocked that there was a different world in 1992, one where time off your book meant time to do your laundry, not time to be on your phone.

Knowing my dad has never been a reader, I once asked him what he did in his spare time before phones. “I don’t know,” he replied. I chose to take this as a sign: he’s been so bored throughout his life that he can’t even recall what most of his free time has looked like. Now he spends his hours outside of work watching people making slime on Pinterest and complains about being exhausted.

I ignored Cameron’s suggestion to stop the books at the time and read with conviction. I would then turn to my phone like a child finding a loophole in their parent’s punishment (well you didn’t say I couldn’t do this…). Now five months later, I find myself finally doing the homework. No book, or phone, so I can be bored.

5 reasons why I love listening to music when I’m out:

I love it
I’m scared of making eye contact with people
It helps me not think too much about how I’m perceived
It kind of makes time pass by faster
It’s an outlet for my emotions

These are also five reasons why I need to stop listening to music to be bored. My ears are full but my mind is empty. After the initial shock of the sounds of the world wore off, I realized how quiet the outside is. I overhear conversations I shouldn’t be a part of. If I drop something I can actually hear someone yelling at me to pick it up. I never knew this many people sang out loud or that the homeless man at my metro station likes yoga.

Although my music-free mornings have played a big role in my boredom, it wouldn’t be possible without resisting the urge to be on my phone. There are a few challenges to this, most notably: I end up in a staring contest with people and I can’t search up that thing I just thought about. How can I let people know I’m just outside to go from point A to point B? That I’m simply using the outside as a vehicle to pass time and increase my step count? But slowly and slowly I realize we’re all on the same boat. And that I’m thinking about myself too much.

To be bored I let my mind focus on one thought at a time instead of feeding my hand-to-phone-to-Instagram-to-a-new-thought addiction. The other day Pompeii by Bastille got stuck in my head and I had to wait it out while I watched someone’s cat trying to climb out a window. I thought of sending a picture of it to my friend but then remembered it might be best for me not to have an answer to wait for.