The Decay of the Luxury of Boredom
We have lost the luxury of boredom, and with it, the indulgence of daydreaming. Daydreaming is essential to creativity, solving problems, and the spark of imagination, but instead, we scroll, scroll, scroll. The device kills boredom, and, in turn, kills creativity - your imagination. Boredom spurs creativity. The end of boredom has introduced a movement towards intellectual laziness, instead of celebrating the brilliance of genius in adroitness. The societal mundane are awarded in all avenues of community, and the magic device aids their advancement. This magic device has a new monster, AI, accelerating and manufacturing increasingly cerebral slothfulness, one of the seven deadly sins. We desperately need to return to the luxury of boredom.
Albert Einstein daydreamed, and he discovered how light waves moved. He was employed in a patent office in Switzerland. There wasn’t much to do there, so through the luxury of boredom, he was able to daydream, think, study, and theorize. We don’t really have that anymore, and our society is suffering.
The loss of boredom has produced intellectual laziness, in turn creating cultural plagues:
-It seems that we are recycling more and more content in movies and literature. It’s being recycled into tremendously brain-numbing stupidity. More and more so called actors, actresses, and writers use their platform to bad-mouth those who criticize these performances or books. Nothing is criticized as bad or terrible because it may hurt feelings. Only positive comments can be attached to the end of posts.
-Social media is full of people that call themselves content creators. What are they creating? Not much other than how to manipulate their audience to fatten their piggy banks. These so-called creators think they are Hollywood royalty, demanding free stuff or trying to “fake it ‘til they make you make it.” They create a false reality of the ultra wealthy while living scam to scam. What is with all the men makeup creators, like James Charles? And why has he been allowed to continually groom young men on various platforms? He is a protected class. Why are women following these creeps? More and more young people want to be content creators (influencers) instead of doctors or scientists.
-TikTok is the most popular self-indulgent cesspool for corrupting intellectual thinking. As one YouTube commentariat puts it every time she comments on TikTok, "Welcome to Hell.” From the Vegan teacher to Lilly “Tino” (although both of these have left because of the huge backlash), they are not creating content but indoctrinating their followers. New Vegan teachers and new Lilly “Tino’s” will manufacture more extreme propaganda.
“Propaganda works best when those who are being manipulated are confident they are acting on their own free will.”
TikTok users are foolish, thinking they control their feed, but the mighty algorithm fills it with self-absorbed, narcissistic indoctrination of a new radical agnostic ideology. The mind-numbed Tiktokers consume any and all on their feed. They join the idiocracy of the feed, some participating in idiotic challenges ingesting large amounts of Benadryl. Most of these “challenges,” which are too many to name, are crimes, not games. Others embrace the barbaric dogma of LBGTQ+ to butcher their bodies with life-changing endless medications and surgical procedures.
-We overshare by posting 90 photos from our phones, 80% of them out of focus. On the other hand, we over-cultivate things. Everything looks pristine, even if we’re in the hospital. It is a fast reality living in the virtual world. Gen Z has forsaken reality for a virtual world of cultivated lifestyle images. They select homes, cars, food, etc. and live out an untrainable fantasy of the ultra wealthy. Gen Z is unable to hold a job or answer a phone call. They have received the most of all generations: primary education cost per student was the highest, physical and mental health access, etc. Are they the silver spoon generation but can’t function in reality?
-People just want a device to plug into their mind. Everywhere you go, people are attached to their phone: restaurants, malls, coffee shops. Everyone at the table is scrolling, posting, playing, or messaging. Although Gen Z have mastered most of the functions and apps of their phone, one function is seemingly elusive: answering a call and talking on the phone. Now, AI creates even more laziness. Somehow students are graduating high school without the ability to read or write. They have been dictating to their devices, a generation of functional illiterates unable to manage in the real world. Some are accepted into universities, but reality crushes their fantasy. Most drop out and end up in student debt, ill-prepared for higher education and the job market.
We’re not bored anymore. We just wanna scroll. Are we killing off our imagination, our creativity, our daydreaming? Embrace the luxury of boredom. Try a little daydreaming. You never know where it will lead.