Beech Tree News Network

My stepsister, Lorrie, definitely had to deal with ADHD, although it was never diagnosed, which meant the rest of us had to deal with Lorrie’s ADHD, as well.  If chaos didn’t show up on its own, Lorrie made sure to invite it to the party.  She would slap a book out of my sister’s hand or throw marbles at my brother, just so they would chase her through the house.  Lorrie would much rather deal with the wrath of her siblings than spend fifteen minutes in the land of boredom.

In 2014, there was a study conducted by a team of research scientists in the UK.  A group of volunteers were put into a room without any sort of outside stimulation—no TV, cell phones, computers or reading materials.  The assignment was to spend 15 minutes with just their own thoughts to keep them company.  These same people were given the option of giving themselves a slight electric shock to their ankles, if they chose to do so…and yes, I know how weird that sounds.  Sure enough, a third of those in the trial group chose to deliver an electric shock to their own bodies rather than just be alone with their own thoughts.  

“They seem to want to shock themselves out of boredom, so to speak,” said one of the scientists observing the behavior (BBC.com, NPR.org).  Lorrie could have told them that back in the late 60s.

The book, BORED AND BRILLIANT, by Manoush Zomordi, addresses boredom as something positive we should embrace, not something negative we should flee.  “It turns out, that when you get bored, you ignite a network in your brain called the default mode…that is when our brain gets really busy,” she says.  

I have to admit, I don’t often just sit with my thoughts.  I read, watch TV, listen to the radio or talk to my family.  Even when I write, it has much to do with what happens during those activities.  Yesterday, I found myself walking through the house saying, “I have to write a column and I have nothing.”  I finally decided that if nothing was all I had then things dealing with nothingness would have to be my subject matter.

Nothing is a frightening subject to deal with.  It is a void, an emptiness, a hole that needs to be filled with something.  The wren and the blue bird fill the hole with twigs and fibers and straw nests.  A dirt dauber finds a hole in the screen attached to the great void that is a window then builds a mud mound that hardens into a sarcophagus for her eggs.  A groundhog sees an empty flat surface and begins to burrow, creating an underground series of tunnels that can reach six feet deep and up to twenty feet wide (livescience.com).  Creatures in nature don’t seem to be intimidated by nothingness.  That is a uniquely human obstacle.

A friend said to me once, “No matter where I am, I feel like I need to be somewhere else.”  I don’t believe a blue bird or a dirt dauber or a groundhog ever faces that problem.  It could be argued that it is because they don’t have the burden of human emotion or the ability to reason.  This is true, but I think it’s more that they have a task at hand, and furthermore, they believe they are up to the challenge.  They are not just “making time till fate steps in.”

Maybe, if we could sit with nothingness for even a few minutes, our greater “groundhog” selves could come up with all kinds of ideas and solutions, not just for ourselves, but for the world around us, as well.  On the other hand, that shock to the ankle would be so much easier.