Be Bored

[SilentQ]

Boredom

For gamers who want to stop, it is the ultimate enemy.  Why do you play?  Stimulus, the sense of accomplishment, the sense that you are part of something larger.   To be engaged.

You hate the feeling of boredom.  We have all been conditioned to hate it.  Everyone has that game on their phone that they play while they are waiting and can't be in front of a TV.  You stymie the boredom with a flashy magazine, not an intellectual one.  You crush it with candies.  You demolish it with birds.  You ruin the one thing that really drives people to innovate, to move on, and make more out of life.  You ruin one of the most important methods of creative thinking and self-realization.  You are taught to do this.

If you really, truly, want to quit, you need to be bored.  The one thing that the world has been conditioned to fight, to spend thousands of dollars on to combat, I am telling you that you need.  Stop.  Stop everything.  Sit on the couch with everything off.  No TV, games, music, or phones.  Put away the book, the instrument, the board game.  Just sit.

Become bored.  Truly and most absolutely, bored.

You will see that it isn't so bad.  You will, after a time, recognize all of the thoughts that come to you.  You get a moment to reflect on yourself and the idea of true boredom.  After a while, it can become relaxing.  You begin to have new ideas.  They won't be all that great, but it is just a start.  Don't act on any of the thoughts, though.  Continue to be bored.  Once you realize what boredom is, lack of stimulus, you will understand why it is necessary and shouldn't be fought.  

Allow yourself a moment of boredom at least once per day.  Eating breakfast?  Eat it and just stare at it while you eat.  No background TV, or music, or conversation, or anything.  Just eat and be bored.  It is one of the most beneficial ways to train your brain to accept it and figure out what to do with it.  You will rewire the way you think through boredom and boredom, alone.  

The trick is not to find something else with which to fill the space of games.  It is retraining the way you have conditioned your brain to think about stimulus and boredom.  Do this and the space will fill itself.

Be bored, my friends.

Q

[seriousjay]

This is an extremely interesting viewpoint. Thanks for sharing.

I think what you've described here is pretty much what meditation tries to reinforce. The act of being still and aware of what's going on around and within, in order to bring that same awareness into our everyday lives. It helps to break free of that cycle of constantly needing the next hit of instant gratification and teaches us to be OK with the idea that things don't need to be constantly happening all the time for us to be happy.