Boredom
This time, a somewhat early submission for February 2026’s Bear Blog Carnival.
This post was drafted on paper in one go and dutifully hammered out with minimal corrections before I can regret hitting publish.
Honestly, I shouldn’t have looked at what other bloggers had written for this prompt, now that I’m sort of late to the party. It seems that most of them have taken to romanticizing the idea, along the lines of “we should all put down our damn phones and retvrn to boredom”.
Of course, I am unable to disagree. The art of entertaining ourselves with our thoughts has been lost in the current age. (Or has it?1)
So much has been said on this subject, in fact, that I have decided against piling on my redundant opinion. I'll talk about something else instead.
It is easy to assume that being occupied is the antithesis to being bored. Try sitting down with your eyes closed and letting your thoughts come to the forefront. You’re bored, aren’t you? And don’t you feel the urge to find something to distract yourself?2 And if you give in to that itch — boom; boredom busted, right?
But how many times have you found yourself ostensibly engaged in something — with your hands or your head — and felt that nagging listlessness nonetheless? The urge to crawl out of your skin. The dissatisfaction with your ever-static routine. Worse yet, you aren’t doing anything worth a damn to solve it. (No, occupying yourself with further tedium does not count.)
Basically, the past two-and-a-half years or so have been the most boring, uneventful, soul-sucking years of my life.
My high school life was intense. I was in the trenches. I was running on empty, dealing with personal and interpersonal turmoil while barely keeping up with school. My eyes were set on a university program with a high entry barrier; that was the light at the end of the tunnel3.
My efforts were a success. After all those emotional highs and lows, I was met with peace at last… right? It might sound silly, and even insensitive, that I’m complaining about having it too good right now. But it’s true.
I have been left utterly jaded by a life in which nothing ever fucking happens.
I wake up and go to class. Acquaintances I don’t care for approach me to discuss nothing of substance. I then go home and stare at a screen until my eyes blur, at which point I switch to a screen that makes my eyes hurt less. Then I go horizontal, tossing and turning until I finally lose consciousness. Then I do it all again.
I feel a whole lot of nothing, until I don’t.
The anxious hum that has occupied the back of my mind since childhood has seized on the most inane subjects. Floaters and visual snow began to invade my vision. I am alternately underwhelmed and overwhelmed, misanthropic and desperately lonely, self-loathing and grandiose.
My one saving grace is that I will be much busier come this summer. Finally, I can then channel my natural restlessness and paranoia into another variety of mental illness. By the time that rolls around, I’ll be nostalgic for my current state of ennui, I’m sure.