VIEWPOINT: The Benefits Of Boredom

By Shari Adler

Having been born and bred in Massachusetts, I must say that all topics and newsworthy stories related to the Kennedys had always been folklore in my childhood home.

The one story that stood out in my mind, besides iterations of both gossip and tragedy, was the fact that the dashing 38-year-old John F. Kennedy, as a U.S. senator from Massachusetts, wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning book, “Profiles in Courage,” while recuperating from spinal surgery in 1954. Even as a little girl, as soon as I was old enough to become aware of this book, I was so impressed by the fact that someone, anyone, could be so accomplished while basically immobilized.

When the quarantined lifestyle of the pandemic hit all of us to varying degrees in mid-March, some of us found the new routine of daily life to be mundane, monotonous and factually morbid. Our realization of the risk of contracting the virus, to whatever random extent, has caused us to subsist with some level of fear. With over 150,000 deceased Americans, to be void of some semblance of trepidation would be to confess to a total and complete lack of acceptance of our current state of affairs.

Admittedly, some of us have had less than a minute to breathe during the pandemic. We may have been juggling work, grocery shopping, cleaning, cooking, and caring for school-age children home from camp or school. Still, there are others of us who have raised our children into adulthood. Once our children graduated from college and began to embark on their own pursuits, we have had to reinvent the focus of our priorities. We began to pivot.

Then the pandemic emerged, and with it occurred the grandest metamorphosis in our manner of living in our existence.

People left the city in droves. Prices of city apartments have been plunging, while prices of suburban and Hamptons homes have been surging. The urban lifestyle of frenetic activity and constant stimulation has been interrupted in an unprecedented manner. Theaters, parties, museum exhibits, restaurants, events, celebrations, coupled with all the purchasing, planning, primping, and preparation that these places and activities had required, have been placed on an abrupt halt. Even people lacking time to think must be pondering issues more than before.

In mid-March, when my own social isolation picked up full speed, I remember reading an article in Town & Country magazine called “Toughen Up, Kid” (April 2020), in which the author suggested that parents should send their troubled teens to the Mountain School in Vermont. The caption for the article read: “How do you solve a problem like an over-privileged, over-programmed, high-strung but cosmically helpless kid?”

I remember thinking to myself that if the author had waited just one month, he might have suggested that parents could position their kids into the middle of a pandemic in which housekeepers have been banned from entering their New York City multi-dwelling apartment buildings, all socially stimulating establishments have been shuttered, and their benefactors, otherwise known as their parents and grandparents, have been placed in jeopardy of their losing their lives.

The wake-up call for overindulgence has morphed into an alarm bell sounding a clarion for an overwhelming dose of reality. Parents, though, are luckily no longer in need of the expenditure of a costly tuition for a mountain school in Vermont.

During part of my pandemic time, I began reading a book my daughter recommended, “Untamed,” by Glennon Doyle. The story is mostly self-exploratory, leading to self-improvement. The part of the book that impressed me most is the part that deals with boredom, in fact inspiring the topic for this piece. I would like to share one passage: “When we are bored, we ask ourselves: What do I want to do with myself? We are guided toward certain things: a pen, a paper, a guitar, the forest in the backyard, a soccer ball, a spatula. The moment after we don’t know what to do with ourselves is the moment we find ourselves. Right after itchy boredom is self-discovery.”

Doyle warns against relinquishing the time that boredom has created. By scheduling our children with all the “supporting” activities surrounding school and camp, we rob them of their opportunity for self-discovery and reflection. They cannot dream and create, thereby identify their own talents. She claims that over-programming, coupled with an addiction to cellphones, leaves children bereft of their own charms and talents. She asserts, “As a result, we are raising a generation of writers who will never start writing, artists who will never start doodling, chefs who will never make a mess of the kitchen, athletes who will never kick a ball against a wall, musicians who will never pick up their aunt’s guitar and start strumming.”

Let’s consider that this over-programming and reliance on our electronic devices leaves us adults with the same lack of time to contemplate and create. This may be the reason, after raising my two children, I embarked on graduate school in my mid-50s, and started writing articles outside of curriculum requirements post-graduation. Prior to mid-life, there was little time for self-reflection and improvement.

However, during the pandemic, I am essentially bored out of my mind. I know this fact makes me extremely fortunate. Before possible envy ensues, I must say that every time I hear Drs. Fauci or Gupta mention that people with pre-existing conditions are at a greater risk, I am reminded that my own chronic lung infection, a condition that has never previously impeded me, is currently the cause of my particular vulnerability and paranoia, like everyone else living with challenging health issues.

I imagine that young and handsome Sen. Kennedy who wrote such an influential book while bedridden. His recollection of eight U.S. senators who defended unpopular political positions while their policies challenged their careers has inspired the 1989 establishment of an annual award recognizing government officials whose bravery has led them to do the same. The uncontested 2019 recipient was Nancy Pelosi. I wish I had some authority, or gravitas, to nominate the next recipient as a posthumous award winner: John Lewis, who lived his life standing for “good trouble.”

I hope we can all dedicate and devote some personal time during this pandemic period in which we consider the “benefits of boredom” as a method for ourselves, as well as our children, by which we can seek opportunities to improve ourselves and the world in which we dwell … even if our aspirations may be less intriguing and impressive than becoming a U.S. president or writing anything close to resembling Pulitzer Prize quality.

Shari Adler is a resident of Southampton and New York City.