Being bored is a lost art
The one thing that almost makes me miss my one-hour commute every morning and afternoon is that I got to spend so much time just staring out of the train windows. It was almost a bit like meditating.
I’m so envious of a one hour train commute over my current one hour car commute. Sometimes I take the train (depends on which site I have to go to that day) and that’s so nice to just… Zone out. But in the car? Two hours everyday of bumper to bumper traffic and I have to constantly pay attention and be locked in. I feel so drained coming home from those days.
From when? It’s kind of rewriting history when people pretend they did nothing before modern tech.
People had plenty else to do. It was just different.
Never before in human history have people been constantly stimulated at almost all times. Even 30 years ago, you could be stuck staring out the window during a train ride or something.
My partner gets antsy if they have to pee without their phone. That shit may be common now, but it definitely isn’t healthy.
wanna personally add: audio media
I used to constantly listen to something: podcasts, audiobooks, youtube, never alone with my thoughts. After a while I noticed I couldn’t explain my mood shifts anymore, simply cause I wouldn’t have time to think through what’s going on in my own head.
I still love all that shit, but try to carve out some regular “alone time” to keep up.
Well, thats a choice for sure. I’ve never taken my phone to a bathroom. Thats disgusting. Its also still entirely possible to stare out the windows on a trip and enjoy the scenery. Lots of us do it.
Ironically, going pee is about the only time I don’t look at my phone during my days off.
Had an older gentleman sit next to me doing exactly this when I flew to São Paulo. 10 hour flight, jeans, dress shoes, button up shirt, didn’t read, only had coffee even with there being 2 meals provided in air, I don’t think he even slept. This was a red eye flight, this man stared at the turned off in flight entertainment screen the entire time.
Either you sat on the other side of this man, OP, or he’s done this more than once.
Yeah that’s me on cross country flights. I do bring a book and computer and all that good stuff but then I never commit to using them and just sit there and think for hours instead. Honestly I think it might ironically be an ADHD thing.
As someone with very acute time perception, it would be intriguing/horrifying to experience ADHD with time blindness for a day. It seems at once highly freeing and also incredibly unmoored. Usually I am walking towards things seconds before they beep and being able to guess the time to within minutes, but some people with ADHD really don’t have that. We’re all so different, it’s just exciting.
i’m not diagnosed but i have a good deal of ADHD symptoms, and for me it’s a strict binary of either 1 second feels like a minute, or 1 hour feels like a minute.
That’s rough, buddy. My kid has it the same way, and it’s always upsetting for them. Fun is always ending too soon, boredom is always lasting too long.
Ironically I actually have very good time perception, it’s not uncommon for me to guess the current time of day within a few minutes and I usually know pretty accurately how long I’ve been at some task. But all the same that doesn’t stop me from doing what you described and just blinking away entire hours. It’s just that when it happens, I generally know exactly how hard I just fucked myself :P
When I’m in blank mode on a plane, I usually mentally check in once every 45/60 minutes and sometimes confirm where I am in time (And space) by pulling up the real time flight map. If I’m off by 5 minutes that keeps me on track.
That’s super cool. I wish I could blank out the hours like that, except like… Opposite. Time goes too fast these days.
Yeah but sometimes you are doing something fun or useful for hours and it’s never wasted if it’s something important.
and here i am cranky if I’m off by 10 minutes.
I have ADHD and fuuuuuck that. I could do it for a couple hours maybe, but I need my dopamine fix eventually.
virgin distraction vs chad mindfulness
Idk, it’s a great time to practice some good meditation and breathing exercises. Just chilling with thine own self
just thine own self, and like a hundred other selves making various distracting noises, and probably at least one or two tiny selves screaming and crying
wonderful
Man has done time. Serious time.
That or the military. You get plenty of practice staring into the void, no matter the role.
Yeah, selling your body to your government for a set period of time without freedom of movement is pretty much the same thing tbh.
insane that they wore jeans
Made that mistake once, never again. Now any travel I do is done in the softest sweat pants I own
I wear them all the time. It’s fine, what could go wrong?
With that name, a lot!
Wow, you know it’s a shitshow when people on the internet recognize a plane QC joke made by a person, currently in highschool (without any aircraft education).
Goochsweatmaxxing
“Inner peace.”
-Master Shifu, Kung Fu Panda
I’ve never watched that series; the Master is called Shifu? That’s so silly.
Real pain. This is how men master the fear of flying.
Is he ok‽ No! No he isn’t! That’s crazy!
Yesterday I raw dog a 2 hour bus ride… Thanks to anti anxiety medication
No and these old memes are so droll.
Homeland security
