On boredom
date. 2024 january 5
place. in the air
on boredom and the magic of flying
I used to race through movie after movie on flights however long or short. As a child, I always found the opportunity to watch as many movies as I could to be something that only happens in dreams (until I started flying).
I used to keep a tally of how many movies I could go through in a single flight. I think the count stopped at 8 (this was when movies were mostly 1.5 hrs long). Now the thought of watching movies no longer excites me. In fact it’s been a while since I’ve made it through one entire movie during a flight without falling asleep (though I still enjoy a healthy dose of documentaries). Sometimes, I find myself sitting there, bored. I am left to think or sleep, or, most often, trying to sleep but find myself thinking. After some serious internal debate, I write my thoughts down unwillingly.
What excites me now about flying is, perhaps surprisingly, the experience of boredom: of not knowing what to do. I have often found that it is precisely within in this boredom, of having ran out of things to do, without some external stimulus, am I able to do what is long overdue and finally examine the quiet queries that have been shelved for what may have seem to be an eternity and unlock the shackles of my long-suffering curiosity. I have done a lot of thinking in air that I couldn’t do on land.
It’s a rarity to experience boredom in its purest form: of having run out of things to do. The boredom that is the result of undoing instead of overdoing. The latter is the form of boredom that we most commonly experience nowadays. Up in the sky, trapped in planes with a small screen in front of us and strangers around us, sometimes on long haul flights, for a couple of hours, we encounter this primal and rare state of boredom. Spoiled by the wide availability of free WiFi, unwilling to pay for internet access onboard, we are without the option of flipping open our phone and brainlessly scroll through one YouTube short and TikTok video after another, no doubt the highest form of human genius condensed in the form of a 60s clip. Sitting there with nowhere to go, no place to hide, empty handed except a few shitty movies displayed on a screen that is barely two the size of our phones played with the sound quality of a brick phone, we are forced to confront the boredom, a strange feeling of not knowing what to do. Some of us resolve to sleeping, others resolve to thinking. Most of those who attempt to sleep are so used to falling asleep to contentless videos that have become their lullaby, a pacifier for this generation of adults. They are left sitting uncomfortably in this strange feeling of boredom, thinking unwillingly and often unsuccessfully of a solution. (Some, we should add, successfully avoid this conundrum with alcohol, which, we shall also add, is no real solution). This boredom is the breeding ground of reflection. From within this boredom, we meddle and battle with questions that have always lingered in the back of our minds but have often been upstaged by other more pressing matters: What and who am I spending most time with and why? Where are they leading me towards? Who do I wish to be next to me right now? Is this trip an attempt to escape something or someone? Who or what am I hoping to find and not find at the destination? What is the difference between me and the stranger next to me except for (quite obviously) our destination and (more obviously) our taste in movies? What could be something that is most unimaginable for me but most ordinary for them? Where do our worlds intersect? Do we have any mutual acquaintances? Will I ever see them again? Will I realise if I do?
On the ground, it is far too easy to find distractions, that we often do not realise the presence, the real presence i mean, of the people around us. the existence of another sentient, thinking being at an arm’s length, thinking, existing, doing things that sentient beings do—battling boredom.
In this flying modern metal box, arguably the most archetypal invention of the modern age that is unimaginable for humans of an earlier time, I enjoyed a few moments of being reconnected with our ancient ancestors and of reencountering myself during a brief episode of precious boredom flying across the continents.