When did you last have nothing to do and do nothing about it? I do not mean rest, which is its own good thing, but the flat, faintly uncomfortable state of waiting with no stimulus on offer: a train that is late, a queue, the dead hour after lunch.
Most of us now treat that state as an emergency. The phone comes out before we have even registered that we were bored. We have, in effect, removed boredom from our lives, and I suspect we have removed something else with it.
Boredom is the mind turning toward its own materials. It is where the half-formed idea finally gets room to finish forming, and where you find out what you actually want to do when nothing is telling you. Several of my best essays began as a restless walk on a day I had deliberately cleared of input.
You do not need to meditate or schedule it. Just leave the next gap alone. Stand in the queue. Watch the late train come in. See what your mind does when it is not being entertained, and be a little curious about the answer.
