boredom

boredom

Knowing yourself is one of the hardest things in the world. On the inside we carry feelings, emotions and thoughts that arise as a result of external stimulus, or come about through thorough internal agitation. On the outside, the way people celebrate or condemn (or feel nothing about) ourselves sketch a portrait of who we are to them. This is how we understand our identity. It is a combination of who we are to others and our habituated internal thoughts and emotions. Our internal selves also hold some ideal nature of self, although not always accurate. Tension arises when this internal self (either real or ideal) conflicts with external self. For the more introspective, we feel discord and tension when people think things of ourselves which we don’t think are either true or desirable. For the less introspective, the identity is more at the mercy of external valuation.

When there is no understanding of inner self, the challenge that is met by the celebration or condemnation from other people is perplexing. Often, this external confirmation or celebration of our thoughts and actions can be the driving force upon which we form our identity. This is not to say such base of identity is bad; different people work differently. However, for those who are shy and lack external stimulus and confirmation often look to their inner ego to find and understand their identity, and conversely many extroverts have their identity constantly externally confirmed by their peers. I am not sure whether it is caused or correlated, but shy people tend to think more about themselves (more introspective).

I dislike categorizing people, especially into such vague and blanketing  words like “introvert” and “extrovert”, but what I just mentioned might explain why the tendency to fit into either one exists. The louder the personality, the more external confirmation one receives, and vice versa. When there is less external confirmation, one must look inside to understand his identity. In this sense, the polarizing nature of being “introverted” or extroverted” is due to how people find and confirm their identities. Often, as people grow up, the desire to know oneself deeper, either through external confirmation (for those more introverted) or through internal agitation (for those more extroverts), becomes more of a demand. The desire to understand more of ourselves. Both can be uncomfortable to varying degrees for different people. Some people find meeting new people distressing because there may be fear from the judgement of other people (external confirmation/celebration/condemnation). Some people find confronting their inner self annoying. After all, note how difficult it is to stay alone doing nothing.

When we are alone and doing nothing, we often become bored. There are some ways to confront this boredom: 1. through inner agitation and self evaluation, 2. external stimulus, 3. reminiscing  (a variant of 1), 4.dealing with external/surface level problems (a variant of 4).

I have mentioned that the two ways of knowing self is by internal blah blah and external blah blah. I’d like to further extrapolate that our responses to boredom demonstrates the daily struggle and minute distress we feel we confronted with only ourselves (to know ourselves). I think the process by which we deal with boredom is either “inside out” or “outside in”. The four points I listed above can be understood as such.

“Inside out” is when we take our inner thoughts and project them out back into existence. Such is the act of creation. Of art, writing, scrawls and doodles. It can also be taking our emotions and organizing them into thoughts in our mind. “Outside in” is taking in external stimulus as a means of either 1. distracting ourselves or 2. finding some facet in the external stimulus which may relate to our inner self.  Such is watching movies/media, reading, snapchat, instagram, news, work, studying etc. Aside from states of pure emotion, humans are usually doing either one of these when they’re bored or alone. Of the “outside in”, distracting ourselves seems to be the option that’s often most taken. I don’t wanna sound like a fuckin hippy or something, but it’s what most people do when they’re bored. Examine the average person when left alone for 1 minutes (especially when within a crowd). S/he starts looking at phone as a way to confront the boredom. Obviously, there are other options that always exist at that point (“inside out” or other “outside in”) things but I think that the phone is the easiest option because it holds the least distress, and thus least capacity for understanding oneself. Even the smallest daily occurrences are habituated in our brain and create our identity on a daily basis, no matter how small. Internally, we are formed by a series of habits and traumas. Our daily habits lay the foundation for who we are. It’s no wonder why internal growth slows down dramatically as we grow older: because our daily lives start becoming the same things and our responses to situations become routinely habituated.

The past century or so is a remark to cheap external stimulus. Imagine a life where every moment of boredom is filled in with cheap external stimulus. He knows himself less and becomes a beanbag of a person: fucking boring and colorless because he doesn’t know himself. I don’t want to end this as a tirade so I won’t.

I’ve always felt the importance of knowing oneself. Knowing yourself is sexy. It forms a basis for confidence, because the external confirmation matches what's inside. Either that of your internal valuation of self is already rock solid. When that external stuff doesn't match the inside, there's distress and we feel anxiety. I recall understanding the nature of our identities, but now I see how it is formed. Understanding this can form a basis of productivity, diligence, and focus, because it serves as a remind boredom can be confronted by productivity, and good, despite being distressful. It also can form a basis of humility and compassion, because it emphasizes the relevance of being good to other (although somewhat narcissistically based). It also reminds us that although people’s opinions do matter, they exist as condemnation/confirmation/celebration/neglect of our identities, which can be useful tools for our own valuation. Being completely independent of such external confirmation can be unhealthy and deluded. But overall, it reminds us that our daily actions all have a place in forming who we are. It’s like we are a multitude of daily actions stacked upon each other, often tumbled or whipped up by traumatic events and ultimately confirmed by those around us and challenged and developed by who we think we are on the inside.