being surrounded by technology, is boredom a thing of the past? If so what have we lost?

How many of you reading this automatically often pick up your phone or tablet and just doom scroll? I know that I do and suddenly a couple of hours have wizzed by with Facebook, Instagram or random videos on YouTube. It’s so easy to get sucked into the virtual world. How many of us actually sit and listen to music or a podcast without doing something else? It’s so easy to get distracted.

So where does the idea of boredom fit into this? what’s the big deal?

The virtual world for me is simply vicarious living, I observe but cannot be truly involved. For nearly forty years I was an enthusiastic rock climber. There are some fantastic videos on YouTube of various climbing exploits but I rarely watch them.

The difference between standing on footholds the size of your thumb nail when high up on a cliff face and watching someone else do the same is huge. When I was in that situation the sense of connection was intense.

This brings me back to the idea of boredom. At the beginning of May this year I spent five days alone in my cabin, silent and without connection to the virtual world.

Sitting there observing the natural world there were times when I felt bored but this gave space for other things to arrive. I can liken it to a glass being empty, when we are fully engaged the glass is full, no room for anything else but if the glass is empty who knows what may fill it. This is what happened on my retreat. I allowed boredom to enter my life and suddenly there was a flow that came through.

So possibly you might like to just sit for a while on a regular basis and see just what arrises.