Is Boredom The Best Trait of Humanity?

Boredom is not good. We all know it's not good.

It's a gimmick to our increasing ambitions of doing what we want and productivity. And it's the thing that stopped humans from ever progressing in life. But why do I bother writing a 10-minute article that sees it as a good thing? I don't really know. So I'll tell you what happened.

Like many of you, I first encountered boredom early on in life, when I was around 11 or 12. Back then, I didn't find any engagement and couldn't focus on any task at school. It was one day out of the rest of the school year. On that day, I stared at the board and tried hard not to sleep in class, or the teacher would kick me out. The lessons were super dull to learn in the course, and taking notes was a chore. Even my ancient history lesson was unengaging, with me trying hard not to fall asleep the whole time. When I came home after school, I was demotivated to do homework. I spent the rest of the hour browsing the internet, still having a lot of energy left. It ended up being one of the worst days back then because of the first real experience of total boredom. The day was so bad that some of these practices were brought over. It's like a giant waste of time and unfulfilling.

I spent the rest of the hour browsing the internet, still having a lot of energy left. It ended up being one of the worst days back then

As I got older and went through high school, the sense of boredom didn't stop. It followed me through my life, and I faced it more often. This sense would bring me a stop to progression that seemed to be the case for all human progress. In high school, this sense of boredom happened another way.

Like most intelligent students in high school, I take the most challenging classes possible in this school, and I get straight A's. But I willingly compromise my extracurriculars and hobbies with academic schoolwork. So, when school entered the weekend, I became bored. During my first year of high school, I became disinterested in science in general. The classes were relatively easy, and the teachers weren't great whatsoever. Their teaching methods were horrible and not fun, as their teaching methods were, at most, time-consuming. I can tell you that taking an absurd amount of notes and turning them in every time was one of the worst learning experiences ever. I get why you should take them; I was a bit dumb. For a subject like biology, with many facts to memorise, it's much easier to use a Quizlet to study all the terms because I wouldn't look at the notes after taking them. Also, you would suffer from learning the first and the last words better than everything. To me, taking notes is not just dull but frustrating. I would finish my notes and have no energy to do anything. Once the weekends come in, I would work on YouTube videos but sometimes don't want to do that at all. When my family and I have no plans for a weekend or a break, I would simply watch YouTube videos without any intent to make one. This crisis shaped my pessimistic view of boredom. But it will change.

Photo by Yoav Aziz on Unsplash

After the pandemic hit the United States in March 2020, everyone was forced to study at home. There were no assignments to deal with and certainly no tests. I did the work to get the extra credits necessary, but it brought so much free time I could never get in person. I became more active in making YouTube videos and saw my channel growing faster than before. It was undoubtedly a great time and began to change my perspective on boredom. I got much better during the entirety of my second year of high school because of the shorter schedule, and it was great. I can make more YouTube videos, get more ideas to create better things, and generally be healthier. However, the desire to return to school with many students ruined my dream.

When school reopened again in my third year of high school, the absolute boredom and tiredness problems popped up again. Now, I must find new ways to keep working on content creation. I must write articles for the blog you're reading, make animation shorts, and produce YouTube shorts. On top of that, I am wholly trapped with the most demanding homework and tests for the time being. I have lots of AP exams and club events. By this point, I might as well pass out just doing those in such a hurry. But I tried my very best not to. I finished my homework on time (except on some quickly resolved occasions), studied and took my tests (including those with subpar scores), and finished my club events by the end of the year.

My 11th grade was a life-changing moment for me, because it sunk me into boredom positivity.

In the summer, I began to do my summer assignments. I started changing my YouTube channel to be more consistent and enjoyable. I kept thinking about video ideas because of the focus on making the best videos possible. Because I didn't have much to do outside of these hobbies, I was prone to become bored. The insane amount of work poured into high school with the amount of enjoyment due to YouTube shorts allowed me to think differently regarding the state of boredom. I learned a lot from many things and began to believe that boredom could be a good thing.

It was when I could work on things I enjoyed during the summer, like writing a super secret TV show, a *blog, *coding, a Scratch animation, and a YouTube video. I began to make some time to plan out things like the activities for the day, my work hours, and stuff like that. I began to reconnect with my friends and family. I started calling on people to check on how they were doing in their lives over the school and summer. Finally, I have the time and energy to plan the trip to Las Vegas for the best possible experience. This time management allowed our family to enjoy it without having many hiccups.

It was the summer of 2022 that changed how I viewed boredom. It became clear that boredom was one of the best human traits. It sets us apart from robots. The boredom worked best as a pause from our constant workout and allowed variation to happen in our life. However, I think that boredom works at a certain length. If boredom can appear too often for you, then it's much better to try something new.

I, for one, joined a science competition club at my school, attended a summer program at the University of the Pacific (link), volunteered at my local library, and even got a job doing surveys. These things could help dwarf boredom if that feeling was excessive.

But if you're one of those workaholics working 420 hours a year on some dank projects, you should probably sleep. I'm Kevin Trinh, and I'll see you later.

HOLD UP

*Hold up! I haven't been active on my blog since last month. Back then, I had a terrible work ethic where I was willing to place my iPad or phone within arm's reach at my desk for any work. I would even use a second laptop too. I would watch YouTube while doing my homework without any sense of time or goal. It was the main culprit behind my desire to feel bored once in a while. Besides, I also faced writer's block there due to self-criticism. I thought I didn't have any great ideas to write for this blog. I came up with some ideas for the blog, but all of them were terrible for writing a 1000-word article for you guys to read. In addition, I wanted to professionalise and make my blog better with images from Wix and more engaging quotes to make this personal blog more enjoyable for you.

For now, I'm working on some solutions to this. First, I wanted to time every single task so I could finish them in time. I realised that I did better on tests than homework, especially math. Tests were timed, and math homework took forever while others finished it in 30 minutes. Second, I wanted to minimise distractions and focus on doing things necessary to grow as a content creator. Third, I wanted to go onto Reddit to view other covers and mentor them to make better music videos. Fourth, I wanted to make longer videos on YouTube to diversify my channel for you guys to watch. Lastly, I tried to plan everything ahead to make life easier.

My progress on coding was slowly coming to a halt due to the ridiculous amount of classwork in school. In addition, Leetcode wasn't particularly helpful for a newcomer like me in learning to code. So, I would probably return to Khan Academy to take more coding lessons and try to make some programs of my own.