COVID BOREDOM

Grounded Delta Jets, PTI Greensboro, NC

There’s an old but not so subtle saying that death is nature’s reminder for us to slow down.  Perhaps a more contemporary version would be to substitute COVID-19 for the word death even though this pandemic has resulted in thousands of deaths in almost every community on the planet.  The subsequent social isolation, both mandated and self-imposed for us seniors, has me at least going full circle to my childhood days.  I still can remember rainy summer days when I must have made my mother crazy to hear me winning about being bored as I stared out at the rain drops on a window pane.  She generally let me sort out my boredom which wasn’t always such a good idea!  Fortunately, I learned to read early on and books took me and Toto to exotic places that weren’t in Kansas anymore.  When it comes to boredom and Covid-19, it would seem we need to learn to accommodate them since it looks like we’re in it for the long haul.  We need to take heart that Isaac Newton invented calculus during the plague.  Now that’s getting into a deep state of boredom!  Of course, social isolating for some folks is more like living the dream!  And boredom isn’t always a bad thing.  

This pandemic has given me the quarantine time to clear out my closet and open space for more stuff reclaimed from the eighty percent of the clothes I will never wear again, restore tranquility in my sock drawer and get all those singles together again, thoroughly clean the house including the eviction of all those mold farms in the refrigerator, really detail my vehicle so that even the inside of the windshield is clear for the first time in ages, upend overgrown bushes and trees in the yard to make space for more plants, toss out the eighty percent of canned goods in the pantry whose expiration dates start with 19, confirm that there are about 7,500 grains of rice in a package, put up thirty quarts of spicy salsa from my Covid victory garden (Actually I made one that up.  I only make reservations.), practice putting inside to keep golf strokes on the green to one or two but forget about correcting the driver slice, finish a book on neuroscience that’s been a work in progress for months, write a new blog post, and increase my time arguing with strangers about politics on social media.  Perhaps I still need to work on that last item!  

Neuroscientists now understand that boredom is the gateway to creative thinking and pondering the direction of our lives.  Just like today, Covid Boredom has prompted me to exercise my flow of mind creativeness.  Calming our unconscious chatter and observing our conscious mind clears the way to some very insightful thinking, especially once we’ve cleared the “to do list” that we’ve been ignoring for way too long!  Use boredom time to creatively insert some joy and fun into those habits and activities that create the boredom.

I appreciate that it can be very difficult for some folks to stop the merry-go-round of life and hit the pause button.  But at least Covid Boredom has resolved that for us!