Is it good to be bored?

The internet is full of tips on what  to do to avoid boredom. This assumes that boredom, which some link to depression, is bad and to be avoided

Yet an article (by Maria Ebling of the IBM Watson Research Center) given to me by a friend indicates that it's important to be bored; in fact, it's good to be bored!

A study in the U.K. shows what neuroscientists have been investigating: that there is an evolutionary reason for boredom.  The mind-wandering, daydreaming that comes when we have run out of things to do can be the source of creativity since it moves us beyond the conscious mind to the subconscious, where the imagination is most active.

Those who seem addicted to their smartphones and texting, says this author, may be cheating themselves.  Presumably, they never have to be bored since they have an endless supply of entertainment and information at their fingertips. But they miss a lot: the chance to do critically important work that mainly happens in "down time."

So, according to this research, it's good for writers and other creative people to be bored a bit. To those who turn to their pervasive computing, the advice must be: Put the phone away and think. Dream. Create something new and beautiful.

And it's quite possible that the electronic devices that are supposed to remedy boredom produce, in time, more boredom and, one hopes, more chances for the imagination to wander or for the artist to observe what's in front of him, turning the object of his or her attention into something worth sharing.

When fear is good

Maria Popova's valuable blog recently cited several interesting books by visual artists that deal with facing fear--what in my field is called writer's block.

One of them, Steven Pressfield, says, "Fear is good...it tells us what we have to do."  The more scared we are of a work or calling, he says, the more sure we can be that we have to do it.  Shaun McNiff in Trust the Process cites Monet as saying that people should not fear mistakes but welcome them because they can be harbingers of new ideas: a mistake may represent something we never saw before.

So fear and creativity go hand in hand, it seems.  The horror of the blank page can also be a stimulant; the initial fears we have in beginning a story or painting seem directly related to the joy we experience, or at least the satisfaction, when the work is completed.

As an anxious person, I have often thought that, if I had been a laid-back guy, I would have not only written less and achieved less but explored fewer spiritual paths.  Would I have taken an interest in silence, meditation, mindfulness and prayer?

When I look at people outside the fields of art and spirituality, I see fear as the driving force in much human achievement, in the intense work that produces success in the world of business, science, academia, etc.  Would there be much comedy without anxiety?

So far all of its negative aspects, fear, even anxiety, can lead to great things; but, of course, it must be balanced with trust.