learning how to be bored again
aka staring blankly out of the subway window
i am a public transit lover. i am always complaining about the bus taking forever to arrive or the subways changing routes, but i still prefer taking the subway or the bus or walking over sitting in a car. for one, i like that while walking or taking public transit, i still feel like i exist in the world instead of being locked away in an isolated chamber on wheels where i can't interact with the environment or other people until i reach my destination.
the downside or taking public transit, is that my commute is usually way longer than it would be via car. i used to dislike having to take 40 minute train rides, and i'd feel tired and de-energized after sitting for that long. to keep myself occupied on the commute i'd usually put in my noise cancelling earbuds, play music, and then go on my phone and do several things at once until i reached my stop. i'd assault my senses with a barrage of sounds and flashing colors, while responding to emails, sending texts, scrolling social media without really paying attention to what i was looking at for for anywhere from thirty minutes to an hour straight, looking up only to check for my stop. so it was no wonder my mind would feel exhausted after all that.
but even when i deleted social media, i'd still habitually pick up my phone and find something else to look at just to pass the time, sometimes i'd find myself scrolling on depop, or etsy, or even scrolling the venmo feed out of boredom. i simply couldn't tolerate doing nothing. this felt like an impossible task for me, because i thought of the concept of doing nothing as very literally closing my eyes and zoning out and having no thoughts and engaging in no activities, which sounds awful. this wasn't restricted to just public transit, anytime i had to wait in line, or wait for my order, or wait for my friend to arrive, or wait for the train, or wait at the crosswalk i'd immediately open my phone to find ten thousand things i could mindlessly occupy myself with so that i never had to spend a single second of my day being bored or thinking my thoughts or simply doing nothing. i didn't even notice how dependent on doing something at all times i was until i made the switch to using an old blackberry phone for two weeks, where the only thing i could do on it was sms text (and use maps, but only if i was connected to wifi). i found myself habitually reaching for my phone all the time even though there was literally nothing to check on it. my phone was eerily silent most of the time, and yet i kept opening it, craving the buzz of a new notification or just anything to do on it.
gradually though, i got used to opening my phone only if i needed to send a text and then putting it away and existing in my immediate surroundings again. and it felt amazing. my mornings felt more peaceful, because i wasn't overwhelming myself with email and texts and instagram and news just minutes after waking up. i noticed more things about my surroundings because i wasn't looking in a screen while walking. i got up to give my seat to people with mobility aids more often because i actually noticed when they entered the train instead of being too absorbed by scrolling to look up. and i started having more thoughts. it feels silly to admit, but getting off my phone allowed me the space to fully pay attention to my thoughts instead of cutting them off to engage in something else all the time. in general, i've noticed myself being able to sustain attention to things for longer, whether that be noticing the instruments in the song i'm listening to, being able to read for longer and think deeper about what i've just read, being able to remember to do lists and my schedule and shopping lists better. i can also engage in my hobbies again, and they don't feel uninteresting compared to the short term thrill of phone stimulation.
all of this is great, but sometimes i truly do get so bored i start wondering if maybe i should redownload instagram for just a few minutes, or if i should open my phone and refresh my email five times just because i have nothing else to do. i was on the bus recently at evening rush hour, so it was very crowded. there were no seats and i was crammed against other people in a way where if i went in my bag to take out a book or my phone or my ipod, i'd be elbowing the people around me, so i had no choice to stand there and do nothing. a very simple task, really, but it felt so annoying to me. i was frustrated that i couldn't listen to my music and was forced to listen to the cacaphony of the one guy playing music too loudly on a portable speaker, and the old woman next to him watching ai generated fruit reels (the pineapple man was cheating on the cherry woman and they had blueberry children) and several people talking on the phone. i wanted so badly to have something to do to occupy myself with instead of listening to all that.
within a few minutes of having this feeling though, i zoned out on my own, stared out the window and just occupied myself with my thoughts. my mind drifted freely, from noting the street signs, to noticing how the city looked different as we passed through different neighbourhoods, to thinking about the tasks i had for when i got home, to planning what i was going to cook for dinner, and other random things. it just took a few minutes of agonizing boredom, before my mind occupied itself on it's own. and none of this took away my ability to pay attention to the people around me, and where i was. and it felt good, because had i been absorbed in doing something else that whole time, i wouldn't have had the time to remember important tasks, i wouldn't have had the downtime to let my mind unfocus. i got off the bus feeling totally normal instead of feeling tired and frazzled and unable to remember what i needed to do next. i didn't have to take a second to regain my bearings and look around me.
i had this experience again recently while getting a tattoo, i usually have my earbuds in or chitchat with the artist while getting tattooed, but at this session the tattoo artist was too locked in to chat, and i had left my ipod and phone in my bag, so i had to sit and stare at the ceiling while having my hipbone and ribs blasted for three hours. on one hand this was pretty bad because not having a distraction made me more aware of the pain and it felt worse and time seemed to go more slowly. pretty soon though, i got to to a state of alternating between zoning out, listening to the conversations going on around me, and being interrupted by a few seconds of pain. when a different tattoo artist across the shop exclaimed about getting ink splattered on their clothes, i was zoned out but still aware enough to remember i sometimes have a tide pen in my bag and offered it up, where i previously would have had my music cranked up too high to hear much of anything else.
these days i've come to love a long commute, i leave my house and i find myself looking forward to doing nothing for half an hour. it gives me the opportunity to destress, process my thoughts, prepare for the day, remember things, zone out, and notice things about the sidewalk, the streets, the people around me, etc. and i don't exit the subway feeling more exhausted than when i got on.
unrelated to post content, my roommate's cat locked into bird videos
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