Brian Explains: Boredom

Some people have a hard time being alone. I am not one of those people. I can be alone for hours and I always find something to do. The hardest part for me is deciding what to do. I guess this makes this an anti-explanation of boredom, but I do not understand how people can be bored. Perhaps they are just boring people so they need others around them who are exciting to make up for their boringness.

When I am alone at home, I usually feel quite guilty if I am not doing something either creative or productive. Many people have a hard time finding a single hobby. I had a hard time only practicing one hobby. I had an idea or thirteen on how to occupy myself between my music, painting, drawing, juggling, Lego building (hey, Legos are serious business), bicycling, skateboarding, swimming, sculpting, computer programming, writing, and movie making. As long as I have a brain that works, I can find ways to occupy it.

I always heard other kids complaining that they had nothing to do. I always had things to do - not because I had all the toys in the world (though I did), but because I had creativity. I could entertain myself with just a pencil and a piece of paper. I would draw, write, invent a new game, or build a paper town. My dad told me a story about spending all day building a town when he was a kid just to burn it down later in the day. That was creative and destructive at the same time. Kids, bored or not, are stupid.

I always liked toys that did not suggest how you were supposed to play with them. Not to pick on girls, but Barbies were quite suggestive toys. (Did you ever notice that when you say "not to pick on" something, that picking on something is exactly what you are about to do?) You might have a house for your Barbie, a car, or a boyfriend, but they are all real things with very little creativity involved. You create situations based on the real world, not a created world. When I played with Legos, the buildings, caves, people, creatures, and other things were all created from scratch. Situations were improvised in my head after I had created the imaginary set for the imaginary movie. When I hear about the things my wife did with her Barbies, I know there was more than creative stimulation going on in Barbie's house. My wife was a sick kid, but at least she wasn't bored.