An English teacher of mine at Joliet West High School, said, on more than one occasion, "Only boring people get bored." Unfortunately, there was a reason she needed to say this regularly. However, this idea captured my imagination to this day and I use it to shame myself when I am, in fact, bored. Boredom is a serious thing."Life is dosage," is one of my maxims and getting just the right dose of stimulation in life is important. Studies have shown links to depression from boredom and significant links to depression from boredom in retirement.
As much as I love engagement and excitement, I had the luxury of being raised by parents who did not seek to ensure my entertainment or pressure my achievement. This means that I can now do nothing with the best of the slackers I have known. There does seem to be an expiration date on my ability to drop out and it seems to be about a month. After about a month of doing nothing, I get a little rammy. Retirement studies show a critical moment about 3 months in where retirees sometimes have some sort of crisis, even physical, that is related to their emotional distress.
My wife can also spot the moment when I am simply 'done' with the proceedings at hand, whether it is a social gathering, or a long denominational meeting. I will take a break, or a conversationally bait a nearby stranger for entertainment.
The boredom problem is not the emptiness itself, of course, but what rushes into the void. Replays, recriminations, regrets, remorse, anxieties, and old bitterness stand at the door and wait for such times. There is a reason that most meditation styles offer a replacement word or phrase to fill the mind so that it doesn't go to darker places.
Besides the foolish things that rush into a head where angels fear to tread, boredom can beget bad choices for actions to distract us from the threatening darkness. Idle hands are the devils playground because the devil, like us, is interested in recreation and stimulation. Let's face it, God can be a bit boring. Rules, roles, constant pleasantness, yeesh. What can be more exciting that robbing a bank and wondering if you are going to get caught?? You get my drift here. The things that we do to NOT be bored may be worse than the boredom itself. (By the way, the view of God as boring is a perspective encouraged by shallow theology and rule-driven religion, not by me.)
The tendency for boredom to lead to depression or dysfunction is why, if you follow the folks who give retirement advice for a living, they like people to take their 'schedule' in retirement seriously. They suggest very specific arrangements for volunteering, socializing, and keeping our bodies healthy.
If you are of the highest spiritual order, you may be able to pull off doing nothing for years without the problems of boredom, but if you were that person you would not be reading this.