📘 Part 3: Boredom

This episode's vocabulary

Hedonic adaptation - the observed tendency of humans to quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.

Contentment (noun) - happiness and satisfaction, often because you have everything you need.

Govern (verb) - to have a controlling influence on something.

Stimulate (verb) - to encourage something to grow, develop, or become active.

Preset (adj.) - arranged, agreed, or chosen earlier.

Prolonged (adj.) - continuing for a long time.

Align (verb) - to put two or more things into a straight line.

Fulfillment (noun) - a feeling of happiness because you are doing what you intended to do in life.

Be exposed to sth - to interact with something surrounding you.

Stimulus (noun) - something that causes growth or activity.

Stimuli - plural of stimulus.

Predisposition (noun) - the state of being likely to behave in a particular way.

Relieve (verb) - to make an unpleasant feeling, such as pain or worry, less strong.

Engaging (adj.) - pleasant, attractive, and charming.

Shun (verb) - to avoid something.

Engage (verb) - to involve someone in something.

Mediated by sth - influenced by something in the middle. (look up this word, it can be used differently)

In tandem - in a bundle/at the same time.

Whine (verb) - to complain or express disappointment or unhappiness repeatedly.

Threshold (noun) - the level or point at which you start to experience something, or at which something starts to happen.

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Questions and Answers

M: Rory, why do people get bored?

R: Well, actually, I read about this recently, and the reason why is because of something called hedonic adaptation. So there's like a baseline for everybody, which is just like not being happy, not being sad. They just, they're at this level of contentment. And it's never just a straight line. It goes up for happiness and down for boredom. But it's pretty regular. Like this is governed by your genetics. So people get bored because they don't have, it's not just because they don't have something to stimulate them. It's also because they have their own genetically preset level of boredom, or contentment, or happiness with the situation. So it's not just about the outside world, it's about the inside of you as well.

M: Some people say that it's good to feel bored sometimes. What do you think?

R: Well, it forces you to get creative and make your own fun. Kind of like how I talked about in my answer to part two. It's like the engine of creativity almost. So it is good sometimes, but it's not good all the time. Trust me, over a prolonged period, it can get very, well, boring for lack of a better term.

M: Are there any jobs that some people find boring?

R: Well, any job could be boring if it doesn't align with something that you want to do. There are people who find teaching boring because they don't like kids or they don't like organising things, for example. So there are these kinds of, well, there are these types of work, but it's really every kind of job. It's more about the person's personal preferences.

M: Do you think all boring jobs will be done by robots in the future?

R: It depends on what your definition of a boring job was or is. If you mean jobs with like minimal creative input, then probably, like working in a factory, for example. Most of those jobs are done by robots. But to be honest, there are some people that enjoy the regularity of these jobs. They're not very creative. They like the the constant repetition of activity. So they might want to do them. And that gives them a sense of fulfillment. They're not bored by it.

M: Why is it that some people work in boring jobs?

R: Um, probably they have like a lack of alternatives. I suppose if you work in, like, a small farm town, for example, then there might not be many jobs that you and I would find interesting, for example. But the other thing is, it's not just about, life isn't all about work. There's also, you can find fulfillment elsewhere in life, like, you know, having a cool hobby and you can work in a boring job as long as it pays for your hobby. A lot of people who play video games do that kind of thing. You have a boring job and then they go home and play video games for the rest of the day. And that's fine for them. And and the same thing is true for having a family like you could put up with working a boring job and be cool with it, because, you know that at the end of the day, you can go back to your family and have fun with them.

M: Why do some people get bored faster than others?

R: Well, it depends on what you're used to. Like if you're constantly exposed to stimulus, like in the form of the... Oh, sorry, stimuli, in the form of the latest information on a subject, or you're always actively working. Then something like passively monitoring, I don't know, factory production numbers on a screen for a significant period of time might be really boring for you because it's just the same thing over and over again. And you could have a genetic predisposition to it as well, I suppose, like I mentioned in the first answer.

M: Nowadays, people have no one to blame other than themselves for feeling bored. Would you agree?

R: Well, under genetics, you might be sensing a pattern here. So like, if that's all true, if this whole idea of the role of genes and how we feel bored is true, then if there's this baseline level of contentment and it's hard to rise above it, then you might slide into boredom more easily. But you still have some control. So you should try and relieve your boredom and not just sit around and moan about it. Sort of like what I did in part two. When I was telling the story, I was bored, but I didn't just sit there and be like, I'm bored. I did things. I complained to you and Vanya on the Internet. That was good. That was a productive use of my time.

M: Rory, do you believe that technology has made life more interesting? Mm. Tell me.

R: Well, well, it's increased the level of complexity, it's made entertainment more engaging in some ways, but it's made other people more boring because they increasingly shun human interaction to be, to engage with something that's mediated by a machine, for example. So it's like, you know, when you go to a party and everyone's on their phones. So that's technology at work. But does that make people more interesting? Has that made life more interesting for them? Not for the people who have to try and talk to them if they're all stuck on their phones? Get off your phones.

M: Should people themselves be the ones who should make their lives more interesting?

R: Well, in tandem with others, yes, and only if they want to. Like some people are happy being quiet and not everybody has to be interesting.

M: Do you agree that it's impossible to feel bored in our world today?

R: Oh, it's possible to be bored, but it's not possible for someone with the privileges of access to, what, thousands of years of technology to just whine about being bored? I mean, you can feel bored, but you have to do something about it. You can't just... Well, you can just sit there and do nothing, but that will not do anything to resolve the situation.

M: What about the future? Will more people feel bored in the future?

R: Probably not, no. We're coming up with, well, they won't feel bored because we'll be coming up with new and better ways to stimulate their interest in things. But that won't necessarily be a good thing. Like I said, sometimes boredom can be good for your creative impulses, to stimulate your creative impulses.

M: Do you think that some people never feel any boredom at all? They just don't, they never get bored.

R: They might have a higher threshold for being bored. They might be genetically predisposed to having a higher threshold to feeling bored. But I don't know how you would measure that.

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