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By Francesca Martinelli, Anthropologist & Content Creator
The holiday period is here. For some of us that means time away from work and other responsibilities, for others, it means going on vacation, while some continue their routine as it is. My guess for what all of these people need, regardless of what their plans are, is boredom.
I recently took some time off from Habitus to go traveling with my partner. We spent a month driving around Europe in a campervan, and, to my surprise, a massive part of that time was spent feeling utterly, magnificently, bored.
My partner and I had envisioned a trip packed with good surf along the coasts of Spain and Portugal. I’d imagined driving along looking for the best surfing spots, parking up somewhere up on a cliff overlooking the sea, and clinking our cans of beer with an exhausted and satisfied smile after having been in the surf all day.
Instead, we drove around empty coastal towns (we were way out of tourist season in late October) and parked up in front of stormy, messy seas. We’d planned the trip for that date because Autumn provides the best waves for Europe, and we’d eagerly anticipated quieter, yet active town life. Instead, we mostly found unsurfable beaches and businesses closed for the low season.
Ok, don’t get me wrong, we still had a good time. We enjoyed each other's company and found beauty in the ragged, red-sanded cliffs of Portugal and the cow-roamed fields of the Basque Country. We had incredible food when we occasionally chose to switch our go-to campervan meals for eating out at local spots. And we met other campers with whom we could trade war stories and laugh over a couple of drinks under the stars.
But I have to admit that at times, I struggled. I realised eventually, it wasn’t so much the boredom itself as the feelings that arise when boredom clears out every distraction, and you find yourself existing… and nothing else. As a natural “over-doer”, I felt uncomfortable in this state. At first, I fought it. When I realised the surf wasn’t gonna pick up, I made my partner drive our massive campervan into town, needling around tight cobblestone streets and past annoyed locals giving us and our inadequate transportation nasty glances (with good reason!), for the purpose of buying myself a pair of running shoes to fill in those desperate hours of boredom. A boredom that insisted on bringing me closer to some very uncomfortable questions I had succeeded in burying under the bustling routine I had back in Australia.
But in those long hours driving, and in those moments of inactivity after the new spot for the next day or two had been thoroughly scouted, camp set up, meals prepared, dishes washed, and the sand and dust on the floor of our van brushed off for the tenth time in the last hour by my tireless self… the boredom inevitably returned. And with it, those uncomfortable feelings demanding to be felt.
And so eventually I let them seep in. I sat in my camping chair and got bored, and then sad, and then felt homesick for Australia and for my home country, which made me confused and sad all over again. In boredom, I journeyed back in time to my childhood, my teenage years and my decision to move to Australia. I reflected on my time at university in a foreign country, on the struggles of moving abroad, and on this last year that saw the beginning of my career and a new romantic relationship. I reflected on my work, my friendships, and my day-to-day. I observed my fears, my contradictions and my mistakes, both old and new. I revisited what I left behind and what I gained through the choices I’d made.
One day, we drove down a dirt road in Galicia that led us to a beautiful, secluded beach surrounded by cliffs where the waves crashed and splashed magnificently. The beach break had a consistent surfable wave with nobody on it. My partner beamed at me, thrilled that we’d finally scored some waves, and anxious to get me in the water where I’m usually my happiest self. Knowing that I’d been struggling: “Let’s wettie up!” he said.
I stared ahead, the breeze was cold but refreshing, the waves crashing on the cliffs were mesmerising, and the moon was already out. Yet, I felt the ground where I was standing inviting me to stay. “I think I might just pull out the blanket and chill out here for a while” I replied. I saw his smile and the rest of his face contort in confusion. I smiled at him, “I just feel like being out here in silence and just taking the view in.”
He stared out at the sea, nodded, and then turned his head back to me and smiled softly. After reassuring him I was okay, that I wasn’t going insane, and that, no, I wasn’t going to have a mental breakdown whilst he was in the water, he put on his wetsuit and started heading down to the beach; “Yell out if you need me to come back, yeah?” he called. I waved and sat down on my blanket.
Byung-Chul Han celebrates boredom. He speaks of “candid tiredness” as a state which “grants access to long and slow forms that elude short and fast hyperattention: deep tiredness rises to become a form of salvation, a form of rejuvenation. It brings back a sense of wonder into the world.”
Having surrendered my fight against boredom, I sank into it and found comfort in its timeless depth. In fact, in those deep states of unregulated, unbounded meditation, I found an old version of myself. The child and the teenager I once was, who rejoiced in solitude and stillness, thoughts easily slipping in and out of consciousness, and indulging in the habit of catching one particular, interesting train of thought and chasing it down to the depths of reflection to discover new terrain. I found myself back in that familiar state of mind, once buried under hyperstimulation. I remembered how thrilling it used to feel when boredom gave way to curiosity and creativity. I understood that every dream I’d ever held had been born in this state of contemplative attention, and that consequently, all choices I had ever made (moving to Australia, for example) were intrinsically tied to boredom.
Byung-Chul Han astutely observes: “We owe the cultural achievements of humanity - which include philosophy - to deep, contemplative attention. Culture presumes an environment in which deep attention is possible.”
The critique of obsessive doing/producing/achieving and its inevitable denouement into burnout is becoming common parlance in the Western world. Yet boredom as a solution escapes us. For one, boredom isn’t sexy like other so-called ‘burnout cures’ like weekend yoga retreats and sauna/ice-bath combo packs. Boredom is unsexy and boredom is just that: boring as fuck. As Byung-Chul Han explains, culture presumes an environment in which deep attention is possible. Such an environment is increasingly hard to find in a society saturated with so many appealing stimuli wanting to claim our attention. The internet and our smartphones give us immediate access to overstimulation without having to leave the comfort of our homes. The more we engage our attention, the more difficult it becomes to endure boredom to the point of getting out of it what we desperately need: restorative contemplation.
After my trip, I can confidently say three things: First, I can confirm that boredom is really boring. Second, I can also claim with the same level of certainty that boredom can also be creative, restorative and meaningful. And third, no matter how hyperactive your attention has become in a restless world, you can always find the way back. Expect resistance, but then again, nothing good comes without effort; Boredom that can be easily replaced by effortless action, like reaching out for our phones, eludes meaningful reward.
When we returned to Australia, my housemate asked, “if you could describe your trip in one word, what would it be?”
“Unexpected,” I replied. “It wasn’t the trip I wanted but it was the trip I needed.”
Now back in my routine, I feel the pull to scroll through my phone or fill in the “empty” hours with something fun and exciting like a run in the bush or a surf. But having fundamentally changed my relationship with boredom, I give in to the stillness when it appears during the day. Sometimes stillness doesn’t appear at all, sometimes it does and I fail to sink into it. That’s ok. The good thing about boredom is that it's timeless (although this feels like a bad thing when you’re fighting it). In a world structured around the finality of time, boredom appears as an ageless, timeless space; a haven in which to retire in infinite contemplation.
My message to you, reader, is simple: try not to fill these holidays edge-to-edge with activity. Allow for pauses that feel awkward, empty, or even pointless. When boredom inevitably shows up, don’t push it away. Treat it as an invitation to slow down, to listen inward, and to reconnect with parts of yourself that only emerge in stillness. You’ll be surprised how restorative boredom can feel.
This 2-minute culture check offers a safe way to surface the conversations your people might be holding back — and what to do about it.
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