Don't let distractions pollute you. Get bored!

Introduction

It is pretty well known that us, humans, don't like to be bored. Tik Tok, Instagram, Youtube, Twitter/X. We always try to find something to distract us from our reality. Even music. How many of you go for a walk and always have those headphones in? How many of you listen to your fully randomized and big Spotify playlist while you do something?
This is the point i will discuss today after a long time of not writting any article. I've been pretty busy with university, giving some classes and doing work. However, I've got some time now and I want to share my thoughts on this topic.

Why Boredom is Important

How much time has passed since you enjoyed the silence? I mean, how long has been since it was just you and your thoughts? We live in a world full of noise. I don't only mean, like, the noise of your city. You might live in a quiet place in that aspect. I mean the noise of your devices.

However, have you asked yourself when was the last time that you were the one that created and not the one that consumed? When was the last time that you really dig into yourself and your OWN thoughts?

For some of you, this might even recall to when you were a mere kid. When you made that sand castle and when you asked your mom "what is this" or "what is that". That Kid Curiosity might have died within you when you became an adult, or even before, when you became a teenager.

This leads me to my main point. We don't have time to self discovery. Worded better, we don't really have to when we have constant information blown into our brains. We have it way too easy. Let me do an analogy first to understand my point and how thinking like a kid can make you a way more creative human.

The Kid Analogy

When we were kids, we were constantly BORED. What did we do when we were bored? Well, we may had different ways to approach it. Us, zoomers and older generations, we had our toys and we imagined our own epic fight with our own epic story. We may have imagined the drops of rain, in the window of the car, having a legendary race to get to the finish line (the door). We drew our family as a happy stick figures, grabbed by their hands, in front of their square houses.

If you were walking with your parents, mentors, brothers, or any other person, you may have asked them a hell ton of questions about the world that surrounds you.

This obviously does not apply for (most) gen alpha kids, because some parents like to just give their kids and iPad and make them watch Cocomelon, which is the absolute worst thing you can do with your kids and, obviously, the fastest way to fry their brain.

When you are an adult, you don't have that luxury. You have a job, you have responsabilities, you have bills to pay. But you can use this super power, called The Kid Curiosity, by calling it with one incredible trick: Allowing yourself to be bored.

When you, as an adult, get bored, you won't play with toys obviously, some of you may do it by some hobbie, but you can do different stuff. An adult, with their own thoughts alone, is a double edge weapon. You can create amazing things, but you can also fall into the trap of overthinking and spiraling into negative thoughts.

How do you ignore this? Sometimes, you just can't. But enjoying the silence, instead of reaching for your phone or other distractions, can help you reconnect with yourself, can't you? It can help you analyze your situation in a more deeper way and understand YOU. Think by yourself, instead of letting the algorithms of social media do it for you. Create by yourself, instead of consuming mindlessly. Learn by yourself, don't let an algorithm bombard you with random information. Educate yourself about something you're interested in.

You may ask yourself "but, what do i create?". Well, if you already became bored and the only thing between you and creating is silence, you can explore your wonderful brain. Some of you may have an affinity for music, so create a melody in your mind, or even better, if you can use an instrument or use a DAW, create it there. If you always liked those drawings of your favorite artist, why not grabbing a pencil, paper and start doing some basic drawings, to discover your own style? If you always liked that writter, let's say Edgar Allan Poe, why don't you try to create your own short stories?

As an adult, you have way more power than a child, if you think about it. You have the technique, you can read, draw, listen and understand language, some of you can speak more than one idiom. You have far better tools than a cube and a bunch of sand, you have the entire collection of human knowledge: the internet. You have a far deeper, richer and cosmic understanding of the world, the everything. Make your Kid Curiosity raise and come back to life. Ask yourself questions. How does this work? Why did this character do something at certain point of the story? Why did this artist did the drawing from this perspective? What does these words mean, in these Edgar Allan Poe's poem? What did Charles Chaplin mean in The Great Dictator speech? What was the context when certain thing happened?

These questions can only raise if you have the kid curiosity, even if you aren't consciously aware of it. It is within you. Make it shine. Make it come back to life and explore the world.

Instead of having a stupidly big and randomized playlist of Spotify, start digging into the artists you like. Listen to their albums in their intended order, pay attention to the lyrics and try to interpret them, by your own. After doing that, go on and read the intended meaning of the album and each of the songs. Explore the creative process of their creation, you may find some stupid stuff that you thought were deep, and some deep stuff that you thought were stupid. Your mind will blow and your understanding, not only of music, but of the world, will be expanded.

Don't listen to music mindlessly at every hour of your day. Make it an special moment. This will give the music a higher value than just background noise. Understand the artist feelings, and make them engrave in your heart.

Let me remind you something, and the core idea of this article. There is no better sound in this world than the sound of silence. The sound of your own thoughts. The sound of your heart beating. Embrace it.

In my case, i have a lot of dreams. I have dreams almost every night. What do i do? When i wake up, i write them down in my so called Dream Journal. I write them down in a lot of detail and then i interpret them. I tell them to somebody else. I make my own theories. Some of them just say "Why do you take your dreams so seriously? They are just dreams". But i don't care. I use my imaginations to get creative inspirations. This lets me explore ideas for my own stories, art, and projects, as stupid as it may seem! Dreams are a huge art inspiration, see this article!

Kid Curiosity in Action

I am obviously talking about the context of arts, so it is obvious that these fields are inherently creative and expressive. However, you can apply this to engineering, science, math, history, biology, medicine, business, teaching, everything.

How can you use your Kid Curiosity as a university student? Get REALLY bored in class. My first advice is to hide your phone and any electronic device, even tablets. Use bare paper and pencil. Use some colors, also.

Since you're out of distractions, you have literally no other choice than pay attention to class. By doing this, you can LITERALLY hack your brain to make you thing that the class is actually interesting and engaging, since the other option is do nothing.

When you do this, you can start to ask yourself questions about the topic. How did this happen? Who discovered this? Why would anyone even think about this? How does this relate to my career and why do i have to study it?

See how you automatically start doing THINKING? This is a super power, even if you don't believe it. Just test it and you will see how you start to understand the topic in a deeper, better way.

Sometimes, you may even go to your house and do some research about the topic by your own, even if it isn't required by the asignature. This way, you can further enhance your understanding and potentially discover new interests related to the subject. With this method, you can make even the absolute worst class in existence bearable, and even an interesting one.

I want you to remember something. Well, maybe you don't actually remember it, but when you were a kid, you literally were not afraid of asking questions. You were curious about everything and anything. You wanted to know how things worked, why they were the way they were, and you weren't afraid to speak up and ask for clarification. You were not afraid of asking the "obvious".

I want all of you to apply that in your adulthood. Don't be afraid to ask questions, no matter how trivial they may seem. Embrace your curiosity and let it guide you in your learning journey. I am the kind of person who believes that no question is too small or insignificant. So, let's foster a culture of curiosity and open dialogue, where we can all learn from each other and grow together.

Conclusion

The kid within you always shines, but sometimes you just have to polish it a bit to make it shine brighter. Embrace your curiosity and let it guide you in your learning journey. Don't let your creativity, introspection, and imagination be supressed by distractions. Let the noise be the silence. Use the sound of silence in your favor to become an absolute super human.