Where Does Your Brain Wander To When It’s Bored?

Today’s WordSmith Deck prompt (see this article for what this is all about) was:

“When you feel bored, where does your brain wander to?”

The thing is, I’m not sure that I am ever truly bored, because if I have nothing specific to do or think about, my brain’s wandering prevents boredom from arising in the first place.

And to me, if my mind is doing something, then I’m not bored.

I do get that, for some people (maybe extraverts?), not “doing” something and being lost in thought are both boring – but that’s simply not the case with me.

According to Merriam-Webster, boredom is “the state of being weary and restless through lack of interest.”

So as I said, it’s incredibly rare that I have no interest in anything.

However, in the spirit of the above prompt, then here are a few possibilities, in no specific order:

1. Music. Like many people (I hope), I appear to have a jukebox in my head that plays largely random music. It might be a song I heard recently (e.g. as part of a movie), or it might be something from my daily playlist of over 600 songs and pieces of music, which is on shuffle play for most of the day, or it might be something I’ve not heard or thought about for years – and I have no idea why the music pops into my head.

   Once there, it can be stuck for a few minutes, a few hours, or even a few days, as happened with the song Yellow Flicker Beat by Lorde, which I first heard during the closing credits in the third of the four Hunger Games movies.

2. Poetry. I might suddenly get the inspiration for a poem or, more likely these days, a haiku, which is something I’ve loved writing for a few years now. I’ve even started my own publication, 17 Onji, on Medium.com.

   Sometimes a line or idea will pop into my head out of nowhere, sometimes it might be inspired by a photo I see on my computer, or perhaps a scene in a movie or TV show.

3. Conversations. Being an introvert and an analytical thinker, I often have conversations in my head, between me and myself, or other people, who may be real or imaginary (e.g. a generalized concept of one particular type of person).

   These conversations may be purely fanciful, or they may be “practice” conversations, which is something I think many introverts indulge in. Words do not come easily to us, at least, not well-thought-out ones, because we need time to think about what we want to say, which is why we prefer to practise the conversations we may have to have, especially difficult ones, in advance.

4. Articles. Since I write an article for this site every day, I sometimes get ideas for new articles. Again, these may be based on books or articles I come across, or it might be sparked by a TV show or movie, or it may come out of nowhere (or that’s how it feels).
5. Mnemonics. Occasionally, if I’m trying to distract myself, I will recite things I’ve previously learned (e.g. country capitals, playing cards). You can read more about mnemonics as a memory aid here.
6. Music. Unlike the first entry in this list, this is more to do with listening to the music that’s playing and trying to use it as something to focus on – like a musical meditation, which I’ve written about here.

   It might be a particularly relaxing piece of music, if I need to calm down and quieten the voice(s) in my head, or there may be a few specific words in the lyrics that resonate with me.

7. Meditation. Following on from the previous point, while I don’t meditate in the usually understood sense of the word, I do often like to simply sit in silence (which is something we should all do more often.)

   It’s virtually impossible to stop thinking about anything at all, but the key is to accept those thoughts (and not judge them or be distracted by them) and then return to what you were doing – i.e. nothing, in this case.

8. Nowhere. Sometimes, my brain might just shut down, or, at least, the conscious part of it, since if the subconscious part shut down, that might not be good for you.

   This doesn’t happen very rarely, because my brain seems to be chattering all of the time.

   During my years of deep depression, it often felt like my brain and I were two separate entities, which is something that doesn’t occur very often these days, which is good, because it felt like I was going mad.

9. Dogs. I might start thinking about my dogs – the ones I’ve had, or the three I have currently.
10. To Do List. I usually have tons of things I need to be doing that I rarely get around to, partly because one of the things I’m best at is procrastinating. I really have to be in the right mood to do household type jobs – largely because I don’t enjoy them and have never been any good at DIY, for example. (And yes, I realize if I did more of these jobs, I’d be better at them.)
11. My Wife. Specifically, I’m talking about my second wife, who died unexpectedly about 15 or 16 months ago now. It’s difficult to walk past her chair and not think about her, and sometimes I just miss the conversations we used to have, or the comments we’d make on the shows and movies we watched. (I’ve already written about what my first year as a widower felt like.)

    Rarely, my mind may drift to memories of my first wife, although when I recall the things we did together (e.g. go on vacation), my flashbacks (if you can call them that because I have aphantasia so I can’t actually recreate those mental images) usually only include me and not her – which is maybe because she was the trigger for my years of depression, and our divorce was not exactly amicable.

Conclusion

Given the way my brain appears to work, if I felt I was bored, I would probably start thinking about boredom – and then I wouldn’t be bored any longer. 🙂

Seriously though, I think boredom is partly something that affects those who are not comfortable being by themselves. And personally, I have never minded my own company, not even in the days (long ago now, fortunately), when I didn’t really like myself that much.

And perhaps technology has had an effect too – when I was young, kids were able to entertain themselves using almost anything, but now, when most children (and their parents?) rely on the wonders of smartphones and computers for their stimulation, it seems as though people are losing the ability to pass the time without external inputs.

But to me, there is no reason to be bored – there is always something you can be doing or thinking about (e.g. reading, writing, art, exercise, sports, games, puzzles, music, walking, cycling, problem-solving). And if you consider thinking without doing something is boring, you may need to re-evaluate your attitude to the act of contemplation.

Additional Resources

These are suggestions for those who wish to delve deeper into any of the above:

1. Boredom Busters
2. WordSmith Deck