Boredom is not an emptiness

We think boredom is the absence of something. It is really a signal: your mind, with no stimulus to chew on, starts manufacturing its own.

That is why the best ideas arrive in the shower, in the supermarket queue, on the journey you already know by heart. It is not magic. It is a brain that, having nothing to consume, sets about producing.

What is unsettling is how well we have learned to cover it up. Every dead second now has a screen to fill it. And with every gap we plug, we shut down a small factory.

Perhaps being bored is not wasting time. Perhaps it is the only moment when time is finally yours.