Boredom is a choice. Or so people say. I have often been irritated with students who find everything boring when there is interest in every subject if you have the curiosity or will to look for it. The world is full of fascinating things, from the natural world to the products of the human one. And now we have it all at our finger tips. In my childhood, if you wanted to know about something, you had to find a book about it. That meant going to a library or a bookshop, looking for a book that might be relevant, searching through indexes and scanning pages to tell you about the thing you wanted to know. It wasn’t easy. It took time and trouble. Now, with the wonders of the Internet, all you have to do is type a few words into Google and there it is. We can argue about the reliability of the information you might find on random websites on the web, but the amazing availability of information is incredible. You can become an expert on anything from the human body to ancient Greek literature. Strangely, this has not made us less bored. We seem more bored than ever.

Harking back to my childhood again, it was not always easy to find things to do. Genuinely, on a rainy day, I had the choice of playing with my toys, reading, writing, drawing or working. The TV was off-limits until the evening (Presbyterian mother), but in any case there was no children’s TV until the brief slot in the late afternoon on a week day, and some chaos that passed as entertainment in the morning on a Saturday. There was the radio too, of course, but there was only one set in the house, in the living room. I don’t imagine my parents would have wanted to listen to the same things as I did, but, to be honest, I never put that to the test. I was often bored. I had friends to visit, a huge back garden, lots of lovely toys and books, a field with horses and a pond at the end of the garden, and the sea only a few fields’ walk away. But I was often bored. I think it probably made me pick up a difficult book and read about other worlds to escape from my boring one. It probably made me write stories to create a world I would rather live in. I spent hours taping my singing on a little tape recorder, then recording my recorded voice and my live one onto the family’s tape recorder, thereby building up harmonised versions of hymns and songs. Am I arguing that boredom made me creative?

People now have YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Netflix and so many other entertainment sources. How could anyone ever be bored again? There are people to find out about, locals and celebrities, places to discover, stories to watch, ideas to ponder. Yet here we are, in this world of every possible interest, and again I am bored. The lack of input in my childhood pushed me to do things that were valuable, I think. But the overload of input now may do the same to this generation.

In these pandemic times, I have a short attention span. Today, I could not watch the usual YouTube clips, read the usual snide, vitriolic, self-centred tweets, look at others’ perfect or banal lives on Facebook. I could not be bothered watching the series I have been into on Netflix. I could not be bothered to clean or tidy the house, read a book, do some work. Instead, I ponder boredom. It deadens, though the despair it brings can push you to do something worthwhile in the end.

It’s a bit of a pathetic enemy, to be frank. If we compare our situation to what people suffered in war time, being bored does not come close to the horror and fear that war inspires. And there was plenty of boredom around during the war as well. If all we have to suffer is being a bit bored, then surely that is a small price to pay for the safety of people in the community. We should be thanking God that it is boredom (and not death, disease, pain, suffering, grief) that we have to contend with. So many people in these times have so much more to bear.

So forgive me if my boredom has not this time led to creativity (unless you count this meaningless exposition). I come to no conclusions. I simply say that to rebel against it can produce amazing things, but to give in to it leaves you eating a whole packet of biscuits, drinking a bottle of wine before dinner, or whatever your chosen vice might be. I have to hope my creativity kicks in soon…