Emory Rosenow

Tag: Self-Care

  • In Defense of Boredom

    In Defense of Boredom

    So, one really cool thing about living in the times that we do is that we have the whole world at our fingertips. Smartphones give us near-instant access to any person we want to talk to, any fact we want to know, or any game we want to play. We have found the vaccine for boredom. We also now all know everything – isn’t that awesome!

    What Is Boredom?

    First, let’s establish some definitions. Boredom is the unpleasant feeling you get when your environmental stimuli don’t match up with your needs, or your expectations, or (crucially) your wants. This can happen in low-stimuli environments, like waiting in line at the grocery story. It can also happen in places that should be high-stimuli, like classrooms. If you don’t care about electron valences, you’ll feel bored listening to a lecture on them.

    Tangential Rant Time

    One article I read to do research for this post had a claim that boredom was “literally nonexistent until the late 18th century.” (Link here for citation purposes. It’s an ok article, and it does cite its own sources, but that one quote killed the whole already shaky thing for me.) The author claims that the transition into the Industrial Revolution gave rise to this novel and now “universal” human condition. Before that glorious time, people were too busy scrounging around in the mud for food and shelter to be bored. Mud farming being, of course, a famously stimulating occupation.

    Monty Python and the Holy Grail still
    Mud farmers were too busy to think of big picture items like the plight of the working class

    Humans did of course go through a sudden change during the Industrial Revolution. Good Queen Victoria waved her mighty scepter and suddenly we discovered that, thanks to spinning mills, we could get bored now. Before that, spinning by hand was a boredom-free endeavor. Ploughing fields with your good pal Daisy the mule was endless entertainment. Fishing was even more thrilling than it is today. Travel was constantly fraught with excitement like tigers and wolves and pits of lava—wait, no, that last one is Minecraft. Probably.

    Anyway. The point of this rant is that people have been bored since before they could even put it into words. (And I was probably kidding about Queen V waving her hand.) The only difference today is that we can so very easily assuage that ennui.

    Back To Your Regularly Scheduled Programming

    Back to where we left off. Boredom is a negative feeling. It’s your brain telling you, go do something better! There is nothing inherently wrong with this: if you’re doing something you don’t like, it’s worth considering doing something else. We do however experience boredom during things that we have to do. Washing the dishes isn’t super fun, but it has to be done. If you want to earn a degree, you have to sit through those boring lectures.

    The cool thing we can do today is avoid boredom really well. All you have to do is whip out your phone and bam, you’re scrolling through your Insta feed and entertained AF. Get bored with that? Scroll through Facebook. Then you can move on to twitter when you’re truly desperate. The only reason to be bored today is by your own choosing… right?

    What We Do With Boredom

    Let’s look for a moment at the most bored population of humans: children. These sticky little urchins love bursting into rooms and declaring, “I’m bored!” for all to hear. “I’m bored! Entertain me!” I personally was not one of those kids (admittedly because the words “I’m bored” were strongly verboten in our house, one of our few firm rules), but I have seen such imps out in the wild. One of the best parts of children declaring their boredom is that you can hand them a literal stick and that’s enough to entertain them.

    Unfortunately, sticks aren’t the toy de jour anymore. Part of the impetus for this post was a concert I recently attended, at which a kid in front of me spent the whole time glued to a video (no sound) on his phone. I don’t think I saw him look up once at the stage. His entertainment, his way to avoid boredom, was 100% whatever was on his phone. Outside events need not apply.

    Phones are perfect for avoid boredom. You can choose your preferred method of entertainment and stick with it no matter where you are. In line? Facebook. Doing dishes? Podcast. Driving? Totes obvs the best time to text your bestie! This ability to choose exactly what to entertain ourselves with is an amazing power, and it’s also terrible for our brains. (Also for our safety put your phones down when driving I swear to everything that is holy if one more person tries to drift into my lane while on their phone…)

    Why Be Bored?

    Why then do I think that we should embrace boredom? First, let’s look at sleep. Weird move, I know, but bear with me. What is the primary function of sleep (probably)? It’s to rest our bodies, giving them a chance to heal and reset. This crucially includes our brains. We know that sleep deprivation has fun effects like forgetfulness and brain fog. We also know that sleep plays an important role in processing memories. Now, in order to sleep, we intentionally remove external stimuli and basically make ourselves so bored that our brains shut down. And our brains love it.

    So what’s going on here? Boredom feels bad, and our brains push us to avoid it, but it’s also maybe good for us? To answer that we have to examine what happens when we’re bored:

    1. We’re in a situation that is insufficiently stimulating
    2. We realize we’re bored
    3. We find some distraction

    The crucial step is No. 3, the distraction. We have two options for distraction, which I’ll call input and output. Input is the straightforward answer of finding something more interesting to do. This could be anything from pulling out your phone to reading a book. Whatever you’re doing, you’re changing your environmental stimuli to match your interest, inputting information to your brain. In contrast, output is when you change your focus without changing anything about your environment. Instead of pulling up Facebook, you observe your surroundings. Instead of reading, you think about what you’re going to do tomorrow, or next week, or next year. Output is thinking.

    Operation MATH

    RIP

    As this blog is called Thoughts of an Emory Rosenow, you can imagine that I have a few opinions on, you know, thinking. And, unlike the late great YangGang, I’m still here. But while it’s one thing to tell people to think harder, how do you actually do that? Think about an elephant. Now think about it harder. That doesn’t really work, does it? What we have to do instead is work outwards: did you think of a real elephant? How old is that elephant? Is she a wild elephant? Does she have a favorite color?

    Kanizsa Triangle, used here as a visualization of output boredom
    Kanizsa Triangle: a visual example of your brain making sense from abstract information

    Our brains don’t really do single thoughts very well. It’s not a matter of attention span, though. Thinking harder entails thinking broader, and making connections between things. In this way, wandering thoughts is not only normal, it’s good. It’s your brain making new pathways around, like a lone wolf patrolling his territory. (I include a badass-sounding example so that you know this isn’t all pansy spectral plane what-not nonsense.) Our brains have an amazing ability to make sense of things from very limited information, to make connections between seemingly unrelated ideas, and to understand different viewpoints.

    Input Distractions

    Allow me to take a moment here to point out that there is nothing inherently wrong with input distractions. In fact, in order to have output, our brains need something to chew on in the first place. In order to make those connections between seemingly unrelated ideas, you need to know those seemingly unrelated ideas in the first place. The reason that I’m coming from an anti-input angle is because input distractions are the default for most people today, now that input is so dang easy. My only note here is to gently nudge you to think about the quality of your input distractions, because that will determine the quality of your output.

    Output Distractions

    Let’s go back to our child with the stick. A stick gives her practically no input. Its value as a toy is entirely what she makes of it: a sword, a wand, a baton. She thinks about what she has taken in recently and makes it her own story. This is classic output distraction: taking what is around you and thinking about it in your own way. It’s spacing off, it’s daydreaming. It’s letting your mind wander to wherever and whatever it happens across. Your teachers in school hated it.

    But it’s not just imagination at work here. There’s also introspection. If you never give yourself a break from input, it is nearly impossible to know what you yourself think. You become a parrot of whatever you heard last or most often, because that’s what’s in your mind. Think of how chefs taste food: they don’t shovel a bite into their mouths and swallow. They pause to let the flavors settle on their palates, or whatever floury (ha) language they use to describe it. We have to do the same with thoughts, letting them sit and settle and mature.

    The problem with that is that it’s not immediately rewarding. Input distractions are nice because you can open an app on your phone and you’re good to go. What’s more, we have scientifically optimized so much of our entertainment to be maximally engaging to our brains. So much of it is like mental junk food that choosing a healthier option, say a non-social media option, is like choosing kale chips over cookies. Where’s the fun? Of course we all know the benefits of eating healthy. Healthy entertainment has the same long-term benefits: increased attention span, more knowledge, better memory.

    A Note on Negative Thoughts

    Sometimes there’s also bad introspection, like when you start obsessively thinking about that time last week when your waiter brought out your food and said, “Enjoy!” and you responded, “You too!” It’s understandable to want to avoid these kinds of thoughts. If you suffer from anxiety it can be really easy to get stuck in these thought-ruts, and leaving yourself alone with your brain is then really scary. Do first and foremost take care of yourself in whatever way you need.

    If these thoughts are intrusive and interfering with your life, consider talking to a professional or even just someone you trust. We don’t always notice how bad things get until they’re really bad, but an outside take can put things into perspective. Additionally, professional therapists are generally pretty good at their jobs, and can get you the help you need. Ideally, your brain shouldn’t be preventing you from living your life, but there is so much that can go wrong with our bodies. Even just knowing what’s going on can be a huge help.

    The Point of Boredom

    Let’s put this all together now by going back to the beginning. Boredom is what happens when your external stimuli are insufficient to fully occupy your brain. You can cope by either introducing new stimuli (input) or by reassessing your situation (output). Input is easier, and (pending quality) can build on your framework of knowledge. Output is more difficult, because it’s not as immediately rewarding.

    Our modern society is so built around boredom-avoidance that actually being bored feels proportionally worse. Medieval women didn’t have an easy alternate entertainment option while they were scrubbing their clothes, so they simply had to learn to live with the boredom and monotony. Victorian children didn’t have video games, so they had to come up with really dark skipping-rhymes for entertainment.

    So what’s the real payoff for us in the modern era? Boredom gives us a ready-made moment to flex our gray matter. It’s like an impromptu meditation, defined by our insufficient surroundings and drifting thoughts. It lets us examine our present, and from that we can interrogate our future. It gives us space to make connections between thoughts, which in turn is what spurs creativity. Boredom is ultimately what allows us to progress as humans, and by extension as a society. It allows the space for longer strings of thoughts, making stronger chains to plumb new depths. Boredom is the time for our thoughts to happen.

    If you made it to the end, congratulations! Have some cat pictures in reward. If you’re still in a reading mood, check out some of my other themes:

  • Theme of the Week: Isolation

    To continue from last week’s Intro to Self-Care, I want to talk about isolation for this week’s theme of the week. It might not seem like the most logical progression, but I think that to actually talk about self-care, we first have to look under the hood and think about some of the underlying factors.

    What is Isolation?

    Isolation is the state of being alone. Humans in general do not deal well with being alone, especially involuntarily; we are social animals. This PBS article on solitary confinement illustrates some of the psychological consequences of isolation. There is clearly something about social interactions that is necessary to the health of the human psyche.

    Let’s think about social interactions as a muscle. You have to exercise it in order to stay in shape. There is a minimum level of activity required to keep it from atrophying altogether. On the other hand, as any weightlifter will tell you, a key part of building muscle is rest. Constant social interaction doesn’t leave you time to rest your brain. This time alone is when your brain moves things from short to long term memory, and when you have a chance at some introspection. Whenever you’re in a social situation, you choose some public persona: your work self, your hanging out with friends self, your family self, etc. This is just a form of code switching. It’s good to spend time by yourself, learning who you are beneath your social personas.

    It’s also possible to isolate a community. The Galapagos Islands are a famous example of isolated species, and how they changed from their parent species. The many and varied human cultures are partly due to community isolation. In modern society we also now have isolated online communities added to the mix. Under increasingly adverse conditions, isolated communities and individuals can feel pushed to radicalize.

    Isolation vs. Loneliness

    While isolation is the state of being alone, loneliness is the state of feeling alone. It’s an emotional reaction to insufficient social interaction. You can be isolated without feeling lonely, and you can feel lonely without being alone; however, I believe there is always an element of isolation in loneliness.

    I personally am a raging introvert. I love my friends and family, I even enjoy interacting with strangers, but if I don’t get my time alone I start to get hilariously grumpy (my description, definitely not anyone who’s with me at the time’s description). I’m not sure I’ve ever felt lonely when I’m by myself. Instead, I feel most lonely when I’m in a social situation and I feel isolated from the group.

    Loneliness requires that there are people you would like to be with, and for whatever reason can’t be with. Recent studies suggest that loneliness is a widespread and increasing problem, especially in the United States.

    American Isolationism?

    Americans traditionally pride themselves on rugged individualism, a belief that an individual is entirely capable of complete self-reliance. This is of course a nonsense philosophy. Especially as modern society develops, there is simply no way to completely isolate yourself from the rest of society without reverting to a primitive lifestyle. It is a very seductive idea though, that you can be clever and powerful enough to not require any assistance from other people. It’s especially seductive when you’re already alone, to fantasize about not needing anyone instead of going through the work and pain of finding people to be with.

    However, humans are social creatures. Wherever we go, we build societies so we don’t have to be alone. As our societies grow, we create governments to structure them. Sometimes the governments create their own governments. We create complex systems of communication. Humans need other humans.

    Having a society means that you can rely on other people to do some things for you, so you don’t have to worry about it. This ranges from trusting that Gorb will stay awake to keep the fire and you alive through the night, to trusting that engineers know what they’re doing enough to keep your house/office/roads from collapsing. The bigger and more complex a society gets, the more individuals can specialize.

    Isolation and Self-Care

    But we’re getting away from isolation and self-care, aren’t we? Or are we? Self-care is all about staying alive physically and mentally. Social interactions seem to be a big part of mental health. Isolation (from social interactions) is therefore also a big part of mental health, and therefore also of self-care. So where does American Isolationism come into play?

    The theory of rugged individualism has become pervasive in our society. Take care of yourself, because no one else will. To quote from two paragraphs ago, having a society means that you can rely on other people, or in other words, societies run on trust. If you don’t trust anyone around you to help, are you really still part of that society? If everyone in a society is expected to be self-reliant, then is that really a society? Or is it just a loose collection of people living roughly in the same area?

    Self-care exists to deal with stress. One of the main stressors is resources, which in modern times is mostly money. (Because we trust the supply chain of goods.) Our main expenses are housing (plus utilities, etc), food, transportation, children (if applicable), retirement (theoretically), education, and healthcare. American society has unfortunately decided that rampant inequality is just how life works, which has the effect of making people despondent, and erodes their trust in society. And now we’re to every man for himself. That billionaire needs to keep their money to create jobs? Looks like keeping people alive is a business now. Grandma’s too old to outrun that cave lion? Guess we’ll see you in the next life, Nana. You shouldn’t have gotten so old.

    Society and Self-Care

    None of this is exclusive to the United States (we’re not that special, friends), but some of it we do “better” than most. Other societies have dedicated resources to reducing some of those financial stresses for its citizens. As Americans (and welcome to the pool party, Brits, we see you dipping your toes), we just have to work a little harder at self-care.

    For the sake of your brain, don’t check out of society. But also for the sake of your brain, take some time for yourself, alone, without your phone or the TV. As my good pal Hesiod once said, “Moderation is best in all things,” and that applies to isolation too.

    What do you think about isolation? What are your opinions on self-care? Comment below, because I love more thoughts! Subscribe by email in the sidebar if you want to stay up-to-date on my blog, and check out some older posts if you’re new or behind.

  • Intro to Self-Care

    It’s the hot button issue that’s sweeping the internet: Self-Care! Buy this book and you too can learn Self-Care! Read this list of 45 easy steps to achieving Self-Care! #TREATYOSELF! There’s a lot of literature out there on how to care for yourself, but not a lot on why it’s important (or not?). Therefore here’s my intro to self-care, and why it has become an issue in my humble opinion.

    What is Self-Care?

    Ok, so, first off we need to establish what self-care is. At the core of it, it’s literally everything you need to do to take care of yourself to stay alive. It’s also, crucially, what you need to do to stay mentally alive (am I hearing THOUGHTS??). This article does the best job that I’ve found of explaining the different facets of self-care, so I’ll let that do it for me.

    Why is Self-Care?

    Why does self-care suddenly seem to be such a big deal now? Humans have survived for hundreds of thousands of years, modern humans have been trucking along for tens of thousands of years, so why should we care so much now? (Prepare to clutch your pearls, anthropologists, there’s some potential pseudoscience incoming.)

    Perhaps you’ve noticed, but modern life is stressful. Of course our ancestors had it pretty rough running from lions and having to track down their next meal for days, but those were problems that we’re relatively well equipped to deal with. We’re good at covering large distances, we’re great at using our hands, we’re exceptional at communicating, we kind of suck at dealing with existential fears. As a society, we have moved past the hunter-gatherer stage and zipped right into a world dominated by incredibly fast-paced technology, while our brains are still reacting to office job stresses like they’re a pack of cave lions.

    This of course sets off a chain reaction of chemical responses, the good old fight-or-flight as we like to call it. This was intended to help us fight off another angry human or run away from an exciting nest of cobras. It was not intended to help us deal with the long term issues that we face now: worrying about making rent, wondering if we’ll ever succeed at our professions, climate change, whatever your particular brand of stressor is. Therefore we need to find some way of calming that constant influx of stress-reaction-inducing stimuli. Enter self-care.

    How Do We Self-Care?

    First, some depressing news: self-care is about reducing stress of various kinds, not all of which are under our individual control. These are stresses like lack of access to healthcare, lack of a social safety net, inadequate access to healthy food, worries about the stock market, concern about Mother Earth getting tired of our shenanigans and yeeting us off (I unironically love this term, FIGHT ME)… and so on. You know, existential stresses. Some societies do a better job than others at mitigating some of these concerns. An American has a far smaller social safety net than, say, a Dane. There is stress that is under your control, though, and this is easier to address. You can also address your stress responses.

    This is only an intro to self-care, so I’m not going to get into any nitty gritties just yet. But I want to get you started thinking on self-care. It is essentially individual, so you have to find what works for you. The end goal, though, is to reduce your stress. Why does this matter? Because stress can make you sick, reducing your quality of life significantly. It can also make you angry, and then you might end up as a bitter old person who’s really just scared of everything.

    Intro to Self-Care

    There are plenty of articles out there that will tell you how to self-care (I wasn’t joking about the 45 Easy Steps), and to be fair these can be a good starting point if you’re starting from scratch. You can absolutely do self-care wrong: it’s not all about indulging yourself, and it never comes at the cost of anyone else. It’s about taking care of your body and mind in a deliberate way.

    Start by identifying the things that make you most stressed. Then think about things that make you feel good. In some ways this is like banishing a boggart: how can you make those big stresses less stressful?

    More on this anon. I have more thoughts, but they’re not congealing today. You can sign up for email updates if you don’t want to miss out on what’s to come, or check out some past thoughts! In the meantime, I will provide a spot for you to sit while you think about your version of self-care.

    Intro self care bench
    Wood bench in the Alps, perfect for self-reflection