“Only boring people get bored!” Ever hear that? It’s usually in the mouth of an adult trying to deal with some child whining about how whatever’s going on is really too dull for them. As cruise ship companies and the military can tell you, though, boredom is a real threat that grown adults need to deal with productively to stay out of mischief.
If you’ve ever been on a cruise, you may have noticed that the days the ship is “At Sea” (as in, no land in sight) are the most heavily packed with activities. Cruise lines tend to schedule their formal nights on these days, and sometimes their most elaborate shows. When the ship is docked in port? Forget it. Nothing’s happening on that ship because everyone wants out to see the new town outside their windows. We are collectively in an even smaller version of a cruise ship right now, and with that comes the same need to be proactive about staving off boredom. Of course, work and school keep most of us occupied for a large portion of the day, but especially on the weekends, we find ourselves with an awful lot of extra time on our hands. Of course, the easy thing to do is to hunker down in front of the TV or play hours of a video game, and hey, I won’t judge anyone for doing more of that than usual. There just comes a point where your eyes feel like they’re about to dry out of their sockets from staring at screens too long and you find yourself craving something less virtual to do. I also don’t know if anyone else out there shares this with me, but whenever I play video games for a longish period of time, even under the current conditions, some small part of my soul cries out at the amount of mental energy that went into an ultimately useless task. It’s kind of an existential thing: “Is this the best I can do with my precious time on earth?” If anyone else out there is feeling a little numb from media overload right now, I’d like to suggest that now is a great time to indulge in a creative hobby. By this, I mean an activity that generates something more lasting than just the escape of entertainment. Entertainment isn’t bad per se, but to get through this thing, we’re all going to need a reason to wake up in the morning other than just to fill the time. Right now, someone next door to me is practicing the piano, and I applaud that. My own father largely became the pianist he is today because in the pre-Internet days without TV at home, there were only so many ways to spend one’s time during a Wisconsin winter. The person next door to me, who I am fairly certain is not a professional musician, will come out of this thing having mastered a piece or two to play for their friends. Two nights ago, I dusted off a crochet pattern my mother-in-law gave me months ago. I spent two hours laying down two rows that I may have to pull out because I’m not sure I did the base chain right. If I keep at it for however long this situation lasts, by the end I will have a beautiful afghan that sort of looks like an American flag. Bonus: the tactile experience of working with the yarn is helping a little with the lack of touch opportunities—the hugs and handshakes we all miss so much. Several of my friends are in to painting miniatures. This is painstaking, detailed work that I don’t have the patience for. I love seeing their finished products, though: incredibly intricate armies of tiny figurines that they use to re-enact historical battles or pitch against others who do the same thing. Those battles will have to wait, but I’m sure several of these guys will have truly magnificent ranks of little soldiers before this is done. For those who didn’t have a creative hobby of any kind before this all started, this will be a little tricky because many of these hobbies require materials. Even baking, the mainstay of bored people the world over seeking comfort, has its challenges: eggs are getting hard to find. (You can substitute ¼ cup applesauce for one egg in most baking applications if it doesn’t matter that the thing be able to rise. Cupcake people: if you know a way around that issue, I’d love to hear it.) This is a great time to learn how to cook from scratch from fresh ingredients, though, not just because of the extra time but because higher levels of cooking skill will allow you to make more of what you can find at the grocery store. One hobby that doesn’t require much to start is coloring. Everything you would need to get started on that and even on actual painting can be found at Dollar Tree, which is still open because they sell food. If you can get your hands on some Legos, this is a great time to experiment with more complicated building techniques. Most people I know have at least one jigsaw puzzle collecting dust in a closet, and this is a great time to give it some exercise. This is a great time for people who used to write a lot to dust off their ideas for novels, short stories, and poetry to take another crack at them. All the materials necessary for writing are already at home for everyone who’s telecommuting anyway. I leave this one for last because the last thing anyone who’s truly tired of screen time wants is to spend even more time in front of a screen. If writing was once your passion, though, this is the time to reclaim it. Even if your stuff is terrible, this is a great moment to practice your craft. Whatever you find to do, make it something that will make you feel proud of the time you spent on it. Even if it’s just for you. And if you happen to make something that looks or sounds good enough that you don’t mind sharing it? Please post it on social media. We could all use the distraction.
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AuthorJillian Lutes is the youth pastor at West Covina Hills Seventh-day Adventist Church. Archives
May 2020
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