I'm going to start this thread off with a disclaimer that I'm not going to be completely scientific in this post because some of things I'm going to talk about I just don't know a term for.
The common, empty notion that you hear people throw out there is often something like 'only boring people get bored'. That'd have the meaning that there is an infinite amount of stuff to do in the world, and so you should never run out of things 'to do', and never get bored as long as you have the wherewithal to keep yourself entertained. This is clearly just total nonsense.
Where I'm going to get a bit unscientific is in discussing a specific part of the brain that I don't know the name of which needs an optimal level of stimulation for a person to be content. The optimal level is different in every person, in extroverts it's very high, and in introverts it's very low, but in any case it's there. I'd guess the role of this part of the brain would be to keep people 'doing stuff', which would inevitably lead to emergent things like relationships and babies.
So when different people try to satisfy their need for stimulation, the goal isn't necessarily to 'do stuff', it's to do the right kind of stuff that hits their stimulation sweet spot. So for an extrovert that thing might be taking some MDMA and going to a rave, and for an introvert it's sitting in a backyard listening to birds. The extrovert lives a crazier lifestyle because they are less sensitive to stimulation.
Where boredom would come in to play is when a person is under their stimulation sweet spot. If you don't reach the optimal level you're going to feel tired and bored, and if you're over it you're likely going to feel anxious.
This is something that's become relevant to me these days because I've done and experienced a whole lot of stuff. I'm hazarding a guess that a lot of the activities that I've routinely done over the past few years are starting to become less arousing than they used to be, and so as time goes by it gets harder and harder to hit the sweet spot, unless I find consistent novelty.
And so I think that boredom is really just as you'd expect: a situation that arises when the novel becomes routine and you don't find the things available in your life that exciting any more.
The common, empty notion that you hear people throw out there is often something like 'only boring people get bored'. That'd have the meaning that there is an infinite amount of stuff to do in the world, and so you should never run out of things 'to do', and never get bored as long as you have the wherewithal to keep yourself entertained. This is clearly just total nonsense.
Where I'm going to get a bit unscientific is in discussing a specific part of the brain that I don't know the name of which needs an optimal level of stimulation for a person to be content. The optimal level is different in every person, in extroverts it's very high, and in introverts it's very low, but in any case it's there. I'd guess the role of this part of the brain would be to keep people 'doing stuff', which would inevitably lead to emergent things like relationships and babies.
So when different people try to satisfy their need for stimulation, the goal isn't necessarily to 'do stuff', it's to do the right kind of stuff that hits their stimulation sweet spot. So for an extrovert that thing might be taking some MDMA and going to a rave, and for an introvert it's sitting in a backyard listening to birds. The extrovert lives a crazier lifestyle because they are less sensitive to stimulation.
Where boredom would come in to play is when a person is under their stimulation sweet spot. If you don't reach the optimal level you're going to feel tired and bored, and if you're over it you're likely going to feel anxious.
This is something that's become relevant to me these days because I've done and experienced a whole lot of stuff. I'm hazarding a guess that a lot of the activities that I've routinely done over the past few years are starting to become less arousing than they used to be, and so as time goes by it gets harder and harder to hit the sweet spot, unless I find consistent novelty.
And so I think that boredom is really just as you'd expect: a situation that arises when the novel becomes routine and you don't find the things available in your life that exciting any more.
