Boredom is the Mother of Reflection
Don't Fear the Thinker
In the book "Busy"1, Tony Crabbe shares his standard response when his kids say, "I'm bored." Tony replies, "Your boredom is the greatest gift I could give you." As a fellow parent, this reply made me laugh and nod at the same time. It is so very true. In this world of non-stop stimulation, we've lost any concept of down time, slowness, and boredom.
Arthur C. Books explains why this is so bad in a five minute video called "You Need to Be Bored"2. Boredom is when your Default Mode Network (DMN) kicks in, the part of your brain that is waiting for down time to be able to come in and start asking the hard questions. Arthur says, "Being bored can lead you to ask big questions. That's good." He then goes on to explain the value, and the associated healthy discomfort, of being asked the big questions.
Time spent in the DMN is when you're searching for meaning. Does that sound scary or exciting? For those with no practice wrestling with deep questions, it sounds scary. But this is yet another "practice makes better" situation. Much like my single-tasking workout in Finite Time3 that progresses you from 5 minutes up to 25 minutes of singular work, Arthur's recommendation is to build up to where you can comfortably spend 15+ minutes being bored. "Start getting better at periods that are 15 minutes and longer of boredom, and watch your life change."
Arthur isn't exaggerating. These deep thoughts are what drive you towards your goals. In that quality time spent with yourself, you find your purpose.
Discovering Default
My sister has nine-year-old twins, and she regulates their screen time. They get 15 minutes of use of her phone daily (so that the son can play SpellingBee and the daughter can do her Duolingo) and then they get two hours of time each Saturday and Sunday morning to play on their Kindles. This gives the kids ample time to, as Tony referred to above, be bored. And that's when their free play kicks in. Whenever we're in the house with them, it's awesome to see and hear their imaginations at work.
But my favorite place to experience their activated Default Mode Network is whenever I've got driving duty. These two in the car remind me of my boys when they were nine, in a pre-screens-everywhere era. I have the radio off and my ears open. Instead of two kids whose eyeballs are glued to screens, these two are looking everywhere and asking all kinds of things. "Is this a shortcut?" "Why are there so many pickleball players here?" "Why are Tootsie Rolls round?"
Default Drill
Cell phone usage is more ubiquitous then drinking alcohol. But there's a pretty good parallel there. Drinking alcohol is considered acceptable, but drinking excessively isn't. It's all about moderation. The same should be true with phones. Most everyone with a phone is using their phone too much. Just walk around in public (not on your phone) and observe how many people are on their phones: sitting, walking their dog, waiting at the bus stop, crossing the street 😮.
Just as the alcoholic can merrily rationalize their excess by saying, "Everyone else is doing it," so too can the phone-a-holic convince themselves that it's okay. That excuse will not lead you to any moment of insight or any impetus for change. You are not in control of anyone else. Instead, sing along with Aaron Burr in Hamilton, who sings, "I am the one thing in life I can control."4
A better way to create a moment of insight is to watch a three minute video of kids resisting the temptation to eat a marshmallow, in the famous Marshmallow Test5. As you watch this video, mentally replace the marshmallow with your phone, and replace the kid with you.
Now, with that image in your head, here's the progression you can go through to activate your Default Mode Network.
Crawl: Resisting Randomization
Find a chair and table.
Sit down.
Pull out your phone.
Set a timer for five minutes on the phone.
Put it directly in front of you on the table and turn it face down.
Close your eyes and keep them shut until the timer goes off.
How did that go? Did you peek? Did you at any point wonder if you might have accidentally set the timer for 50min? What did you think about? Do this successfully a few times, and you're ready to advance to the Walk stage.
Walk: Watching The Wheels
This is a rare occasion where the name of the stage is also the action you should take. Go out for a 25 minute walk without your phone. Just look around as you're walking. When you get home, take five minutes to write down what you were thinking about on the walk.
Run: Road Trip
Take a one to two hour drive by yourself, with no radio on. Do this in a low traffic setting, so that you're not spending all of your time thinking about how much traffic sucks. Take your phone with you, but have it sitting in the passenger seat face down. As your Default Mode Network starts to ask you questions, answer each one as it comes, and if your phone has dictation capability (e.g. "Hey Google, take a note"), dictate your thoughts on that question.
This is an excerpt from my journal for Day 2 of my first retreat6 that captures the potential value of getting quality alone time with your own thoughts: "I remember when my fascination with the road (and particularly new roads) took root in me. In college, after I purchased my first car, I used to cruise around the Blacksburg perimeter because the car was so fun. These trips progressed to cover a broader and broader perimeter, until I was finding back roads to Roanoke, nearly an hour away. Driving the car was the initial fun. But, once the novelty of the car wore off, the attraction that kept me wanting to drive was the time with my thoughts and the opportunity to explore."
Default Deep Dive
My first retreat6 was in a time before smart phones. Boredom was more commonplace, but there were still ways that you could keep yourself from engaging your DMN. You could watch TV, play music, call a friend, read, play a game, open your laptop, etc. My retreat was all about creating an extended period of boredom. I didn't know the term "Default Mode Network" then, but I just knew that I needed some extended quiet time.
This is what I had written in my journal as part of my Day 1 write-up: "I’ve been running a course now for some time – and it’s been pretty effective. At least I thought it was effective. Taking an objective look over the last couple of years, I began to see the level of effectiveness of that course decreasing. I didn’t have to carry that decrease too far into the future before I saw a situation where I was anything but effective. I saw too much time slipping away. 'Retreat!' I hollered. It was time for me to regroup — to take a good hard look at the priorities in my life – and to exact a change of course. And so, here I am, taking a week away from the world to gather, assess, and adjust."
On my retreat, I didn't allow myself any of the boredom distractions. I didn't play music. I didn't call anyone. All I had was a pad of paper and a pen so that I could take notes along the way7. I drove a meandering route on back roads from Richmond to Virginia Beach, and then back two days later. In those three days I overdosed on boredom. I got more than my share of Default Mode Network questions, and built up an exploration list of topics for me to pursue.
As I explained in my "Short Term Selfishness Enables Long Term Selflessness post6, "Everything wasn't solved in that one week away. But what that retreat did do was initiate a nine month period of change, where I slowly but surely course-corrected to better align my actions and my principles. And in the decades that have followed, I am a better person because of this reset. With a clearer sense of purpose, I have been able to contribute more and have a deeper impact on the lives of those around me."
This is the quest for meaning that comes in all of those Default Mode Network questions. Don't fear those questions. Embrace the growth that comes from attempting to answer them.
Footnotes
Busy: How to Thrive in a World of Too Much, Tony Crabbe (Goodreads)
In the "Unique Value Proposition" section of You Are a Grand Synthesis, I said I had two favorite lines from "Wait For It". This is the other one.
The "Live Deliberately" section of What's In a Name? and the introduction of Short Term Selfishness Enables Long Term Selflessness gives more of the backstory on my retreats
My wife recently introduced me to Arthur Brooks through some short clips of him talking about happiness. I love him! So data informed and extremely practical insights.