What Boredom Actually Means

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In 1933, the writer James Norman Hall had a bone to pick with the concise nature of the Concise Oxford English Dictionary. It defined boredom as “being bored; ennui.” “To define [boredom] merely as ‘being bored,’ appallingly true though this may be, is only to aggravate the misery of the sufferer who, as a last desperate resource, has gone to the dictionary for enlightenment as to the nature of his complaint,” Hall wrote in The Atlantic.

Hall proceeds to explain that a dictionary can’t help those suffering from boredom; exercise can’t do much either, in his view (“I have climbed mountains, and boredom has climbed with me”). All a person can do, he argues, is hold on until the moment the boredom chooses to leave. But Atlantic writers in recent years have also pointed to the benefits of boredom—how it can slow us down, how it can motivate us. Today’s reading list takes a closer look at what we really mean when we say, “I’m bored.”

On Boredom

The Virtues of Boredom

By Julie Beck

What’s going on under the surface when people feel bored?

Kierkegaard’s Three Ways to Live More Fully

By Arthur C. Brooks

Take a cue from the Danish philosopher: Instead of seeking a new life, go deeper into the one you have.

Boredom Is Good for You

By Jude Stewart

The surprising benefits of stultification

Still Curious?

• Why boredom affects us so much: If being isolated at home is starting to feel like your own personal prison, it’s because tedium is also used as a severe form of carceral punishment, Saida Grundy wrote in 2020.
• The state of being bored: Read Hall’s full 1933 essay. “Boredom is a lesser malady of the soul, of yet undiscovered origin,” he writes.

Other Diversions

• The return of TV’s most soulful show
• The barcode engineered its own downfall.
• Nine underrated movies that are worth your time

P.S.

I’ll leave you with Margaret Atwood’s poem “Bored”:

“I could hardly wait to get

the hell out of there to

anywhere else. Perhaps though

boredom is happier”

— Isabel