

Good Creative People are Never Bored - shadowfiend
http://www.heywhipple.com/2012/01/08/good-creative-people-are-never-bored-or-what-i-learned-at-the-george-w-bush-presidential-li-berry/

======
geebee
"Saying “I’m bored” suggests you’ve in fact seen and thought of every
interesting thing in the universe, read every book, been down every street,
looked into every window, talked to all 7 billion people and that until some
NEW material comes along, frankly, you’re not at fault for mopin’ around the
house and draggin’ your knuckles a little bit. “Sorry, but there’s nuthin’ ta
DO.”

... I'm not sure I agree. I think "bored" may simply be a state of mind that
people sometimes just have to cycle through.

Like, if you say "I'm depressed", I'm not going to claim that you've gone
through every conceivable solution to every problem the world might have and
that you've concluded every one of them is hopeless. You might be depressed
about something, or you might have found something to be depressed about. I'm
not sure which one is the cart and which one is the horse.

I think plenty of creative people get bored, and I don't think it's always
because of an absence of things to be interested in, any more than depression
is always caused by an absence of things to feel optimistic about.

------
angdis
No one can be "on" all the time. I would even go so far as to say that a
creative person who doesn't periodically crash and burn isn't trying hard
enough.

Many creative people are even prone to varying degrees of hypomania, cycling
between periods of despondency and fits of irrepressible energy.

~~~
seagaia
Is there a paper or article you know of I could read relations between
creativity and hypomania/other psychological things? It interests me.

Never mind, found one

[http://my.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/33524/person...](http://my.psychologytoday.com/files/attachments/33524/personality-
hypomania-intelligence-and-creativity.pdf)

------
ctdonath
Seems there are differing definitions of "bored" here. Methinks the more
common is "I have no idea what to do".

I'm not bored ever, as the universe provides an infinite array of things to
observe or do - and that's assuming I've gotten thru my "to do" list, which I
start every few months and soon give up on because it grows so long so fast
there is no point in so much as prioritizing it (even top priority items will
be so numerous as to take the whole foreseeable future). To the contrary,
sometimes I find the plethora of options paralyzing.

~~~
revdinosaur
Heh, I find myself doing almost exactly that. Funny thing is I usually browse
HN for posts about task management. I really get satisfaction from checking
things off and definitely benefit from prioritizing myself, but does anyone
here have any tips on how to manage things in such a way as to not want to
trash everything and start from scratch pretty regularly?

~~~
jeremyarussell
Keep very detailed notes on everything you do, and if you ever decide to start
something new then archive your notes, digitize them if possible and keep them
until one day you decide to return to it. If you never decide to do that then
give them to your children, (or the world if you think it's that good) etc.

As far as doing something and trying not to get to that point at all, focus on
the one project until it's finished.

------
enimodas
Maybe I'm not like all the rest, but I've never used that definition of 'being
bored'.

To me, it's not about not knowing anything to do, but about not wanting to do
anything. When I feel bored, I don't want to read, to watch, to listen, or do
anything else that requires my attention or effort. I don't think I've ever
felt like "today, I want to do something! But sadly I don't know anything to
do."

~~~
derekp7
What you're describing sounds more like temporary depression instead of being
bored. Actually, I wonder if the state of boredom is actually a form of
depression?

------
drx
This is trivially refuted by the fact that "good creative people" with
concentration/motivation defects, depression etc. exist.

The whole article is a non-sequitur.

~~~
shadowfiend
I think your definition of “bored” is closer to my definition of “motivated”.
I consider the two different things. As ctdonath points out above, the
definition of “bored” I think this article is using (and the one I'm applying
to it) is “I don't know what to do”, not “I don't want to do anything”. So if
we talk about the latter, you're completely correct. I think if we talk about
the former, the author/article makes a better point.

------
shadowfiend
There's an unnecessary swipe at GW Bush there, unfortunately, but I think the
article's point is nonetheless excellent.

~~~
Roboprog
Ah, but it worked for me! :-)

Perhaps it was an "extra", but it did serve as a well known example of the
incurious.

------
iNate2000
I'm usually excited when I have nothing to do because I can finally spend ANY
time on my own projects.

However, I'm often bored of doing particular tasks. Perhaps I'm boring at
doing those tasks.

~~~
analyst74
That's what I feel too.

I'm bored when doing home chores, when working on un-interesting projects,
when stuck in transit, when waiting for things/people, and etc etc.

Man, I must be a really boring person!

------
cafard
Far be it from me to disagree with an ad blogger.

However, many of those we think of when we consider creativity seem to go
through periods of something close to depression.

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pippy
The author of this article is taking the statement too literally.

When someone tells you they're bored they're most likely saying "let's go do
something together". That kid probably just wanted to play with her mother.

If a someone can find time now to _actually be bored_ , it means they have a
healthy disconnect with technology. It means they still have the itch to be
social without going to Facebook, watching the Kardashians or texting white
noise.

------
mtwstudios
cached version:
[http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?ix=hcb&sour...](http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?ix=hcb&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8&q=cache%3Ahttp%3A%2F%2Fwww.heywhipple.com%2F2012%2F01%2F08%2Fgood-
creative-people-are-never-bored-or-what-i-learned-at-the-george-w-bush-
presidential-li-berry%2F)

------
stfu
Not that sure if I should agree the author's statement. I think that energy
management is key and that it should be "allowed" for people to be bored.
Every engine needs to cool down sometimes and instead of giving some lengthy
explanation about "relaxing, regrouping, thinking without a specific purpose"
(at least I) describe this time as "boring".

------
wallflower
See also "How to be more interesting"

<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3423017>

~~~
philf
There's another interesting article in the same spirit:
[http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2006/11/how_to_be_...](http://russelldavies.typepad.com/planning/2006/11/how_to_be_inter.html)
HN discussion: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3279190>

~~~
wallflower
Nice! I love learning about this stuff. This is what interests me

------
DrinkWater
I dont know how "bored" feels like. Ever since i started working as a
developer, i must have lost that feeling. I am constantly working or learning
new concepts. When i leave the office i walk for like 5 minutes to the train.
Then i start reading my RSS Feeds. When i arrive home, i eat and start coding
for fun.

I am the perfect candidate for a burn-out. I know this for sure. And my doctor
too.

------
sopooneo
This is incredibly harsh. And wonderful. I'm so tired of people soft-pedaling
their ideas. Make a statement and stand by it. Stand tall and be ready to be
knocked down if you're wrong.

------
Tycho
Boredom is your subconscious telling you to strive for better.

------
olh
We all shall replace reality with fantasy so not-so-bright people can be able
to write about it.

------
bennesvig
""I am bored" generally means "I am boring.""

------
georgieporgie
Well, the site seems to be overloaded now, and I can't read it, but that won't
stop me from spouting an opinion:

There seems to be a strange interpretation of 'bored' going on here. The best
definition I can find of bored or boredom is, essentially: a general feeling
of malaise and disinterest brought about by tedium.

Now, personally, I've been bored more than I've been engaged in my
professional career. Since losing my job and spending all of my time pursuing
things that interest me, I've found that I complete fewer tasks, but I'm much
more engaged and happier overall. I'm constantly pursuing one interest or
another.

Currently, I have three ongoing projects that might have commercial value (and
about 15 more that are purely to satisfy personal curiosity). Unfortunately,
one of the three projects has reached the stage of development where it
becomes tedious to complete. So, there's the catch. If you want to complete
things, you inevitably have to deal with tedious details, which means you're
almost certainly going to spend time feeling bored.

One other observation: it's easier to get bored when writing code than when
digging a ditch. The latter will tire you physically, but the freedom of
thought is quite mentally stimulating. If you don't have any hobbies that
involve repeatable physical activity, give it a try.

------
mike_ivanov
"Error establishing a database connection"

BORING!

------
hackeraccount
Yeah? I think there's a man whose last name is Holmes and first name rhymes
with ... uh, merlock who would disagree with this guy.

'Course I haven't read the article so I might be off base.

~~~
ctdonath
Holmes was never bored. Every smudge told volumes. Innumerable books were
there for the reading. And when "bored" nonetheless he dove inside his own
mind and explored its behavior under various pharmacological abuses. (Surely
you don't expect his hypothetical "trips" were akin to a common doper's?)

BTW: the article is just 487 words long. You spent more time informing us that
you didn't read it than you would have spent doing so. ...and I'm so easily
not bored I found it interesting to find the word count.

~~~
gte910h
Homes was constantly doing lots of stimulants as well as other drugs

Saying he was never bored is a bit of a stretch for non drug abusers

~~~
sukuriant
I don't use any illegal drugs, but that sort of experimation looks to me like
exactly that: experimentation. And, in the context of the article, he looked
at the universe in all its interesting attributes and chose "I wanna try
this!" something related to, and inside the universe. As defined by the
article, that's not boredom.

~~~
gte910h
I am not saying "Because he had drugs as an option, he wasn't bored". I'm
saying "He was constantly amped up on something, so he wasn't bored".

------
itmag
Not to yank my own cock too hard, but I'm pretty awesome at never being bored.
I can always find new exciting shit to read online and new projects and ideas
to tinker with. Whereas most people seem to check their Facebook and their
daily allotment of funny Youtube vids, after which they need someone to tell
them what to do with their day.

I think the upside for the normals is that they get more enjoyment out of
everyday stuff, though. My constant info-stimjunkie behavior is probably pica
for something deeper being broken. Kind of like constantly trying to figure
out the universe by reading and tinkering incessantly. Instead of just sitting
back and smelling the flowers.

<http://lesswrong.com/lw/15w/experiential_pica/>

Introspective and metacognitive abilities, they are bitches... :(

