Never thought I’d be writing this, but this is a post on how to get bored in the modern age (coincidentally unlocking your curiosity and creativity, as a result).

First of all, why would you want to achieve boredom? Why get bored on purpose? Well, as I said earlier, boredom is the precursor to curiosity and creativity. When you’re a kid, you come up with games to play with your friends/siblings. You imagine other worlds. You bug your parents. You experiment. You notice things you didn’t notice before.

When most people get bored, they run away from it by distracting their brain with something else. For me, thinking about it now, this ends up actually prolonging the boredom until a new distraction lands on my plate. And then I end up dreading being alone because I’m constantly bored doing boring things that other people give me to do. Constantly waiting to CONSUME media instead of PRODUCING better work myself.



For example, a lot of people (myself included) complain about how boring TV has become (my opinion). But hey, why not just make a show myself? Am I not smart enough? Am I not just as, if not more, creative than the guy putting something up on Netflix? There are a lot of shitty shows on Netflix (television included), you don’t have to be good at anything to get on it lol.

Well, apparently, I’m worse than the people passing lame stories for actual television because I’m just a commenter. At least they’re TRYING. I’m just waiting to be stimulated. (Anyways, RANT OVER.)

So, barring anyone who actually has a busy work life or a heavy study schedule, for everyone else, here’s the method I’ve been experimenting with on how to get creative:

- I blocked all online distractions with a website blocker add-on (feel free to search, there are tons of them) For me, these include Reddit, Facebook, LinkedIn, various news sites, WorldStarHipHop and similar rubbish video collection sites (lol), and other distracting websites that you can use your imagination to figure out.

- Just sit there and let your mind think.

That’s basically it.

After a while (doesn’t really matter how long), you’ll start coming up with nonspecific things to do and thinking up random questions that you’ve always been curious about, but never gave yourself the time to before. Better yet, you’ll actually try to pursue the answers yourself.

Is this easy? Yes. Extremely. Compared to distracting yourself with boring time-wasting activities? I have to say no. It’s way easier to keep doing what you’re doing and just not think about anything. Ironically enough, I got bored of wasting time and wanted to try something else.

I don’t recommend everyone do this. But if you have time on your hands and you’re tired of not doing anything useful with your time, definitely consider this.

EDIT: Looks like I’m not the only one with the same idea. Here are some scientists who came to the same conclusion relatively recently (small world): http://nautil.us/issue/53/monsters/what-boredom-does-to-you