Bored? This is anything but tedious

Bored? This is anything but tedious

 

Boredom: Children are quick to distastefully proclaim it and adults are quick to deny it. But University of Calgary Greek and Roman Studies professor Peter Toohey says there is nothing wrong with boredom after all. In fact, he credits the unappreciated emotion for inspiring some of the most important ideas and creative works in history.

If you’ve ever felt fed up and bored and have done something about it, Toohey, also the author of Boredom: A Lively History, says you’ve experienced one of boredom’s benefits. “Boredom is hard wired into us. Like other emotions, it is adaptive. It exists to assist human beings to flourish,” says Toohey. “Just as an emotion like disgust can protect you from eating toxic food, so can boredom protect you from toxic social circumstances. It can force you to act in a self-beneficial way.”

But that’s not all. Toohey maintains that boredom intensifies our self-perception by causing us to step back and to look within ourselves. It encourages contemplation, daydreaming and innovation. Andy Warhol famously claimed to he liked to be bored. It may have helped him generate new ideas.

But there is a downside.

“If unrelieved, boredom is a dangerous emotion. It can intensify and spill over into a manic angry reaction and from there into unrelieved depression. You can witness this with incarcerated animals and humans,” says Toohey.

“Boredom is like an early warning system. If you’re feeling bored you shouldn’t think it’s crazy or silly. It’s a proper reaction to circumstances that can be harmful and you need to remedy them.”

Toohey examines neurological and psychological theories of boredom. He studies boredom as a stimulus for art and literature, looks at boredom in cultures as diverse as the Australian Aboriginals and the ancient Romans, and discusses the role of boredom in literature and art as different as that of Jeffrey Archer, Albert Camus, the early Christians, as well as Albrecht Dürer and Edgar Degas.

Provided by University of Calgary

"Bored? This is anything but tedious." May 25th, 2011. http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-05-tedious.html

Comment:
The roots of boredom are found all the way down in the physical body and is a mechanism to ensure the exercise of muscles etc to prevent problems associated with maintaining a constant posture, not exercising or not using a particular set of muscles.  In that form it manifests as stretching, agitation leading to activity and even yawning.

Once established on the physical level it is a fairly straightforward job to transfer this to the cognitive level where curiosity, boredom, playfulness, jokes and humour all conspire to keep as many cognitive faculties fresh and ready as possible eg we play with what we don't have to use.

Children are more easily bored, more easily agitated, and more playful because, if the conditions permit, they will have a better chance of surviving and thriving the more physical and cognitive faculties they have ready for action as they enter adulthood, and exercise through youth determines where resources (muscle mass, bone density, brain tissue, even the size of some veins and arteries) will be spent.

The opposing imperative concerns conservation of resources whereby A) recourses are maintained for future use or B) resources are more accessible in a social context (imagine the extra energy available when the crowd are urging on the athlete, for instance).

Posted by
Robert Karl Stonjek