Since when did we get bored? When looking for the origins of boredom, some historians place it in modern society, and even suggest that the term first appears in Dickens’s novel Bleak House (1853). But boredom is undoubtedly older, and has been defined in other words, such as boredom, boredom or heartbreak. How earlier is difficult to pin down.
Authors as diverse as Kierkegaard, Alberto Moravia, Immanuel Kant and Robert Nisbet affirmed, each in their own way, that Adam and Eve stopped getting bored when God expelled them from Earthly Paradise, because what is more boring than a place where all the questions , concerns and needs are already resolved and the future is seen as an infinite horizon of monotonous happiness? From the moment they had to worry about something as essential as survival, the boredom disappeared, displaced by the most urgent needs.
According to this reasoning, and in a plane already more adjusted to scientific evidence, it could be thought that the first hominids were also unaware of boredom, busy as they were in feeding, protecting themselves against inclement weather and escaping from predators. But the anthropologist Eudald Carbonell, one of the fathers of the excavations at the Atapuerca paleontological site, in Burgos, specified in statements to Professor Robert Sala in the book Sapiens that the nights of Homo antecessor ” must have been terribly long and boring”, less until the fire was discovered, and with it the lighting , which allowed them to lengthen their waking hours and engage in activities such as making utensils and talking, “which must have strengthened the groups, stimulated teaching and learning.”
More recently, Australian anthropologist Yasmine Musharbash spent three years living with members of the Australian Warlpiri ethnic group, whose lifestyle is still well beyond the 21st century . His conclusion was that they did not escape boredom either, but, being a town that makes a lot of social life – they are rarely alone – instead of getting bored each on their own, they did it in a group.
And it is that boredom seems to have been a threat that has hung over humanity almost from the beginning. What has happened is that for centuries it lacked a name, perhaps because, as Lench points out in his study, “defining boredom is a difficult task, in part because it is not clear why people experience it.”
It is certainly something quite difficult to catch, because it borders too close to apathy, discouragement or depression. There was a time when it was even considered a sin among the religious who lived a monastic life and who sometimes could not avoid boredom while reading the Scriptures: it was considered a contempt for God, who, being perfect, could not be bored.
The two types of boredom defined by the German psychologist Martin Doehlemann are classic: situational and existential. The latter, according to the study by Lench and others, has been linked to more serious problems such as “gambling, drug and alcohol abuse, compulsive eating , school dropout, depression and anxiety.” For its part, situational boredom is related to specific situations, and authors such as the North American professor Patricia Meyer Spacks, in her book Boredom: The Literary Story of a State of Mind (Boredom.
The literary history of a mental state), they do link it with the emergence of modern society, where on the one hand tedious jobs appeared and subject to a schedule, and on the other the concept of free time, something that you had to enjoy. The inability to do so, according to Meyer Spacks, “began to be seen as a state of discomfort that would dissolve if given adequate stimulation. They were the antecedents of leisure culture, with a proliferation of shows to keep the emerging middle class entertained ”.
But there were already some immortal creators who fought boredom in their own way. Nietzsche wrote that men of valor regarded it as a drive for achievement: “They are not so afraid of boredom as they are of working without pleasure; in fact, your job requires a great deal of boredom to be successful . For thinkers and all sensible spirits, boredom is that unpleasant chicha calm of the soul that precedes a happy journey and spirited winds.
In his essay Walking, a philosophy, Frédéric Gros tells how Rousseau declared to feel bored at the sight of the work table in his cabinet, and to combat it he took long walks, during which inspiration and the best ideas came to his mind that later would translate into his work. Kant, for his part, never gave up his five o’clock walk. Curiously, an inviolable and systematic routine presided over much of the life of this charismatic philosopher.
This ritual, repeated daily, was conceived, according to the essayist Gros, precisely as “a remedy for boredom. Boredom is the immobility of the body faced with the emptiness of thought. The repetition of the march kills boredom, because it can no longer feed on the body’s fatigue and search in its inertia for the tenuous vertigo of an endless spiral ”.
Which brings us to the next question: are there boring people and entertaining people? Before writing his essay Philosophy of Boredom, Lars Svendsen, a professor at the University of Bergen, in Norway, conducted a survey – devoid of scientific value, as he himself clarifies – among his friends, acquaintances and colleagues to ask them about their relationship with the boredom: most answered “that they were unable to determine whether they were bored or not .”
Categorical responses were rare, with only one of the respondents categorically responding that he was never bored. “In fact,” wrote Svendsen, “those who, in my little survey, claimed that they were victims of deep boredom were not generally able to argue why; It could not be said that it was this or that that tormented them, but simply a boredom without a name, without form, without object ”.
The teacher does not give much credence to that statement made by some happy mortals: “I never get bored.” We all get bored at some point in our lives, she says, but being such a personal feeling, it is difficult to classify the bored by groups and, while Svendsen cites scientific studies that seem to indicate that women are more bored than men , clarifies that he does not know “any satisfactory explanation of why this should be the case.” There are some traits that do define those who are less bored, such as hyperactivity and curiosity, but it is convenient to clarify something obvious: a person who does not have a free minute all day can hardly feel bored.
Although, Svendsen notes, “When these people rethink that feverish activity time, it is common for them to feel like a terrible void.” Work and boredom are not synonymous either: there are people who entertain themselves and even enjoy their work activity , and others who get bored in their free time. It is not that our time is more or less occupied, but rather that it is used.
Boredom is, for many people, a crossroads in which there are two alternatives: get out or sink into it even more. The key to choosing one path or another would be located in the brain , and specifically in how the maneuvers affect it to drive away boredom.
Neurologist Irving Biederman, from the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, has pointed to opioids, the natural painkillers produced by our brain that have powerful stimulating and euphoric effects, as the main culprit. These act in our minds similar to that caused by certain types of drugs as: a new experience, an activity that absorbs us, causes a rush that stimulates us and the same time, causes us to continue abasteciéndonos with those feelings.
When this is achieved, the vicious circle turns around and, instead of being trapped by a reluctance that paralyzes any initiative, new stimuli are sought so as not to stop feeling active. However, at the same time, as with drugs, successive doses do not have the same effect as the initial one . Therefore, the key to achieving and maintaining this state of stimulation has to do with both brain activity and variety.
