The Value of Boredom

The Beginnings of Curiosity and Your Own Path

I used to be the crazy kid in class who would count how many ceiling tiles were above me. One, two, three, and I'd lose track when the teacher called on someone else. Then, I’d move on to counting the holes in the ceiling tile itself, those tiny, crater-like divots that reminded me of the moon. I’d trace constellations in them, quietly daring myself to find patterns no one else could see. My pencil would hover, pretending to take notes, but in reality, I was somewhere far away. Not dreaming, exactly, just suspended. I was still on pause in the movie that kept rolling for everyone else.

Sometimes I’d stare at the back of someone’s head and try to guess what they were thinking. Probably what they’d get for lunch or a place to go out to. Other times I’d invent imaginary fables in my notebook margins: stick figure wars, cities made of erasers, fake video game levels, and comedic story plots. I wasn’t trying to be distracted. I was just bored. After a while, my eyes would drift to the clock, half hoping it was broken, because how could only five minutes have passed?

School didn’t always feel like learning. I mean we were just being told everything. Instead, it felt like waiting. Waiting for the bell. Waiting for the weekend. Waiting to be somewhere else. It wasn’t boredom that bothered me: it was how familiar it became. Like background static in the soundtrack of my life. I began to crave it. That dull, empty space where I didn’t have to be anything, understand anything, or respond. It became my secret refuge.

Eventually, I started bringing a small notebook. Not for notes, but for thoughts. Observations. Half-formed poems. Lists of questions that had nothing to do with biology or U.S. history. I once filled an entire page trying to describe what silence looked like. Another page was just a collection of words and scribbles I liked the sound of. In that quote on quote boredom, something weird would happen. I began paying attention to something. Something slow. Something quiet. Something the unconscious was telling me. My brain would start wandering, not aimlessly, but creatively. I'd imagine impossible machines. Or think about how I’d redesign the classroom if I were in charge. Boredom made space for things that didn’t have to be useful. They were just mine. I was finally the hacker in my own life.

But somewhere along the way, boredom stopped feeling spacious and started feeling wrong. I got a phone. And then suddenly, I rarely had to wait again. My schedule would be I wake up and check my phone. I eat with my phone next to me. I walk with it in my hand, not even texting anyone, just holding it. I anticipate what’s the next notification or person who would call me like I’m afraid of being alone with my thoughts. I couldn’t sit through anything, listening to my phone’s music to even write this. Boredom now feels like failure and something to fix. It always felt like I needed something to be there so I wasn’t lost again.

The weird thing is, even with all this stuff to look at, I still feel restless. Still feel like I’m behind. I should be funnier, smarter, and more productive. Everyone else is moving faster than I am, leveling up while I’m stuck. The boredom didn’t go away, it just got louder and harder to hear under the noise. Under the daily ruse of productivity, group gatherings, relationship hunts, and career importance. Under the ungrounded version of me.

We traded our stillness for busyness. Gave up our boredom to be a bad habit. Packing our lives without realizing that meaning starts with boredom. And when someone didn’t, when someone just existed quietly, eyes looking out the window instead of down at a screen, they looked almost out of place. Suspicious. Like they weren’t living life right. They were supposed to be chasing the ladder of life. I missed the stuff that didn’t ask for my attention.

These days, I still catch myself reaching for my phone as it is now a reflex. Sometimes I still unconsciously check it before my brain even boots up. But I’ve started practicing something small. Sometimes, I don’t. Sometimes, I sit. I count the tiles again. Trace the shadows. Let my thoughts stretch out, uncompressed. I don’t rush them to be useful. I don’t turn them into content. I just let them be.

Weirdly, that’s when I feel most myself. Not when I’m busy. But when I’m bored, deeply, deliciously bored. Because in those moments, I’m not performing. I’m just living. I have the strangest feelings, the most creative, curious, and happy thoughts. The ideas that could fundamentally change our worlds and try to answer life’s deepest questions. I’d wonder if we can fold time, create consciousness, cure all diseases, speak to animals, upload dreams, rewrite memories, design emotions, reverse aging, and build machines that feel. I’d imagine what it’d be to rewrite the code of life itself, to bend reality. I’d think, what even are languages? What are emotions? What are beliefs? Who are we? Then, what is culture? What is love? What is a soul? What is life? What is reality? Who am I?

And in these long minutes that felt like hours back under the classroom lights, counting tiles and tracing imaginary stars, I learned how to truly see. This time, however, I am choosing to embrace it.