I guess reading this post is timely for me because I tend to go into bouts of frustrating boredom. But a state of extreme boredom is essential to creativity, according to Craig Mod:
When I’m not talking, just walking (which is most of the time), I try to cultivate the most bored state of mind imaginable. A total void of stimulation beyond the immediate environment. My rules: No news, no social media, no podcasts, no music. No “teleporting,” you could say. The phone, the great teleportation device, the great murderer of boredom. And yet, boredom: the great engine of creativity. I now believe with all my heart that it’s only in the crushing silences of boredom—without all that black-mirror dopamine — that you can access your deepest creative wells. And for so many people these days, they’ve never so much as attempted to dip in a ladle, let alone dive down into those uncomfortable waters made accessible through boredom.
I had a taste of this when I stopped browsing reddit during the day. It is still ongoing as of writing this, but I did find it much harder to snap back into a creative routine each time I get back from an overseas trip because travelling is full of dopamine hits and it is difficult to get used to that low dopamine state again. When I stop relying on dopamine to get things done, what kicks in is something that doesn’t rely on feelings or motivation, but a sort of spiritual reservoir that lies really deep within me. The curiousity to see where my practice takes me, to know who will I be becoming. It is the subtlest and softest of questioning. It is something that doesn’t come naturally for me, but I have to pursue and hold on to it like trying to stop a weak flame from going out.
I also deeply appreciated how he wrote about “fullness”:
But perhaps what I’ve gotten most out of these days is an understanding of “fullness.” That is, how much potential exists in the most banal-seeming of itineraries. How everyone has a story worth listening to, even if just for five minutes. How the details and patterns of life go unseen with a head stuck in a phone. And how—after having walked for eight straight hours, heavy pack on my back (multiple cameras, laptop, rain gear), and then having written for hours, edited, banged the text into a publishable state, added photographs, and hit send, finally at the end of the day)—when my head hits the pillow at night, I smile knowing there was no fuller day to be had, no better way to have played the cards dealt to me on that morning.
I have had such days too, though I am nowhere as productive or energetic as him. But for me, this feeling of “fullness” is elusive because what feels full to me changes as I change. I tend to turn a full day into a template that I try to replicate multiple times as I attempt to pursue this fullness again. But I am always falling behind the speed of my psyche, always playing catch up, always feeling lost.
via kottke.org