What is Boredom?

This past fall, I went elk hunting. While hunting, I realized I could, for the first time in years, take a nap. I was out in the wilderness, no phone, no chores, no deadlines, no work. It was just me and the middle Ides of the day, waiting for the animals to become active again. And I found I could lay down in the dirt, put a bandana over my face and sleep like the dead.

I have always claimed to not be a napper. I need to either be sick or physically exhausted to simply fall asleep while the sun is up. But, it's clearly not that simple. When I am at home, there are tons of things I can do at any moment. Even now as I write this, I could be mowing the lawn, reading a book, working on a novel, making food, running errands, looking at my phone, etc.

But when you can't do those things, your mind lets them go. Strange things happen. Like you fall asleep as an adult in the late morning.

It makes you wonder if this is what our brains were supposed to be doing. I think back to my childhood when we didn't have any devices. We spent hours just riding bikes around and drawing horrible chalk spirals. We weren't listening to anything other than whatever was going on around us. We weren't watching videos on our phones. What exactly were our brains doing without the constant influx of stimulus? What are our brains not doing now that we can always engage them?

I am a compulsive audiobook listener. I love putting on an audiobook while I work in the yard or workout. But, fifteen years ago, no one was listening to audiobooks or podcasts. Sure we had music but for me, as a non-musician, I can zone out to music and let my brain run circles around itself. If I'm doing that with an audiobook, I'm not listening to the story.

In 2026, it's incredibly easy to avoid sitting with yourself. You can always do something to distract you from the white noise in your brain. I suppose this is what mindfulness and meditation is all about, and as we become increasingly over-scheduled and digitized, such concepts are becoming harder and harder for the average person to access.

But at the same time, I get why we're always looking to entertain our brains. While on that hunting trip, we walked through a stand of aspens. The aspens had all sorts of carvings on them. These are technically called arborglyphs. Across the West, you can find historically carved aspen trees. Starting in the late 1800's, sheepherding in Western America became a thing that many immigrant men did. The Basque are the most famous Western American sheepherders. They would (and in some places, still do) go out into the wilderness all summer. It would be a couple of thousand sheep, a few dogs, and some guy. They'd spend all summer by themselves, and in their expansive boredom they would carve on aspen trees.

While on that hunting trip, we walked by a big aspen. In it's flesh were the following words:

There is nothing so vast and empty as loneliness.

Humans have spent generations trying to get out of their minds. It's why people do drugs. It's why people thrill seek. It's what makes people feel alive.

But I do wonder if the quiet moments are far more important than we realize. Recently I felt rather sleepy around 3:30 in the afternoon. It was a day off, and I decided to lay down, not totally sure why I was suddenly so tired. I laid down, pulled a blanket over me and didn't look at my phone. I didn't open a book. I didn't put on an audiobook or music. I just laid there in the broad daylight under a blanket and then WHAM. I suddenly knew what my next book's premise was. I wasn't trying to come up with a premise. In fact, I had decided I wasn't starting a new project until the Cash and Gravity side of things was wrapped up. Then, when I finally let my brain relax, I had a premise I had been dancing around for ages but had never considered writing a novel about.

And then I fell asleep.

I have, recently, started to deliberately choose not to put on an audiobook or pick up my phone or a book. Not that I'm getting out of the reading game, but I am trying to get back in the game where I let my brain roam without any input. It seems healthy. There is probably some PhD out there yelling this to the rooftops, but I run more on vibes than I do on research. And this feels like the thing I should be doing, just... chilling, at times. Not cramming every efficiency out of every moment.

Brains are crazy. They can do so much, and yet they have such a small Goldilocks Zone. Give them too much freedom and not enough input and you start carving dramatic things into trees. Give them too little freedom too much input and you take AI as gospel.

With all of the technological advancements of the last twenty years (the smart phone and AI most notably) I know I'm not the only person who thinks, maybe drawing all those boredom fueled chalk spirals wasn't that bad after all.

Maybe I'll go buy some chalk.