Boredom: What Happens When There Is Nothing to Distract You

Epigraph

“remote interest”

William James, The Principles of Psychology, chapter XI. A short excerpt from the original English on the interest that links an effort of attention to something beyond immediate sensation.

What This Article Is About

Picture this: an entirely free evening. Work chats have finally shut up, domestic chores are conquered, and no one is demanding an immediate reply. You would think it is time to live and rejoice: crack open a book, get some fresh air, call an acquaintance, or simply sit like a log. Instead, your brain declares a general strike: every single option feels equally dreary. Your hand twitches reflexively toward any available stimulus before you have even figured out what you actually want, and your mouth mutters the ritual: “I’m bored”.

It is tempting to immediately suspect a deep internal defect or slap a trendy self-diagnosis onto the situation. Yet this single complaint is hardly enough to figure out what is actually missing: adequate challenge, a clear purpose, genuine freedom of choice, or simply enough remaining battery power to get off the couch. There is no need to hunt for hidden traumas or cosmic dramas; to begin with, it is far more useful to dissect the anatomy of this specific evening.

Boredom and the simple fact of having downtime are not the same thing. While waiting for a train on a platform, one person genuinely enjoys studying the dusty window, while another is ready to crawl up the wall just to make the clock move faster. A day packed with tasks can also feel entirely hollow: plenty of motion, zero presence. These are purely hypothetical examples meant to draw distinctions, not an immutable law of human nature. The phrase “nothing to distract me” sometimes means the cheap circus ran out of clowns; sometimes it means there is no project worth investing voluntary attention into; and sometimes it masks an uncomfortable question: “Why am I still dragging along something I lost all taste for long ago?” There are no universal panaceas here, and different situations require different adjustments, even if on the surface everything looks like identical boredom.

We will simply lay out several situations into separate boxes, without promising enlightenment or a guaranteed cure for yawning. The historical psychology of William James, Pascal’s Christian reflections, and contemporary research models look at the problem from entirely different angles; gluing them into a single, proven, ultimate truth about human nature is not on the table. The hypothetical everyday vignettes and short practice below are merely an invitation to private observation, not a clinical protocol. The goal of this article is far more modest than grand theories: to make the initial complaint precise enough that your next step addresses the actual bottleneck rather than turning into a frantic attempt to plug the silence.

I. Plenty of Options, Very Little Engagement

Consider a familiar hypothetical dialogue: someone sluggishly scrolls through a list—watch a movie, go for a walk, mop the floor, meet a friend—and winces at every single one: “Don’t feel like it”. Bystanders immediately roll their eyes at such “ingratitude”: a whole world of possibilities out there, and you are turning up your nose! But a buffet overflowing with dishes and your stomach’s capacity to digest food are two very different matters. Throwing more options at the problem will not necessarily resolve this impasse. It is far more useful to untangle what short-circuits at the very thought of each item: one feels insurmountable, the second has no visible point, the third sounds nice but demands small talk for which you have zero bandwidth. Such an inquiry will not yield instant enlightenment, but it can help keep you from falling into the lazy habit of writing off every refusal as a flaw of character or mere sloth.

In a 2012 paper, John Eastwood and colleagues define boredom as a struggle to engage attention in a satisfying activity. To be clear: only the publisher’s abstract was read here, not the paywalled full text, and this is purely a conceptual framework, not a personal verdict. Still, it neatly shifts the focus: the issue is not just the volume of external stimuli, but whether engagement is actually possible. Our practical step is deliberately modest: instead of generating another catalog of pastimes, dissect a single task where connection failed to ignite. What needs doing? At what exact point does attention slip? And what was actually expected from this slice of time in the first place? An explanation for your own personal rut does not jump out automatically from an academic abstract, no matter how respectable the terms sound.

Suppose someone hits play on a film and a few minutes in is already checking the progress bar: how much longer do I have to endure this? You can declare the movie a dumpster fire and shut it off—a perfectly valid voluntary choice, especially if watching it was strictly optional. But to understand yourself, a fork in the road remains: was the real craving for this specific cinematic story, another human being beside you, a break from making decisions, or simply a convenient excuse to avoid choosing anything of your own? Each expectation requires its own test. Firing up another title will not necessarily patch a lack of companionship. And by the same token, one dull screening does not prove you have permanently lost the capacity to take an interest in life. The scale of your conclusions ought to match the facts, not your appetite for melodrama.

II. Too Easy and Too Hard

Before rushing to turn the dial of task difficulty, it helps to separate boredom from sheer exhaustion—at least as far as one can gauge it on basic terms. “I want to do this, but my battery is at absolute zero” and “I have plenty of energy, but why on earth would I take on this circus?” are fundamentally different beasts. They happily overlap, and this article offers no foolproof home test to distinguish between them. But assuming by default that you desperately need an invigorating challenge is a dubious move. If someone has just dragged themselves home from work, shoving personal-growth challenges down their throat is pure cruelty. Still, citing fatigue does not account for every slump in life either. We are merely clarifying current conditions so as not to embark on something that exceeds available resources from the start.

In the MAC model by Erin Westgate and Timothy Wilson, attention and meaning sit in different corners, and boredom can strike from either cognitive underload or overload. As a reminder: only selected parts of the 2018 paper were read, including the authors’ notes on limitations; correlation in Study 1 does not establish causal direction, and full tables, data, and the PDF itself are not reproduced here. This is not a medical assessment of the reader, but a conceptual scaffold. In everyday life, it boils down to two separate questions: does the task contain an objective capable of anchoring your focus, and is engaging with it realistic under your current conditions? An identical urge to slam the laptop shut does not guarantee an identical underlying cause.

Take a hypothetical routine task: mechanically copy-pasting entries following the exact same template. The decisions were made a decade ago, there is nothing left to learn, the outcome is obvious—and the process can feel terminally dull. The opposite extreme is a manual written in bureaucratic jargon, where alien acronyms pile up faster than you can blink. Attention drops out again, and the material gets dismissed as “boring”. In the first scenario, you could optimize the workflow or trim repetitions; in the second, you might clarify the specific step where you got lost. These are editorial considerations to be field-tested on real work, not laboratory mandates.

Adequate difficulty is under no obligation to turn every chore into a dazzling video game. Some necessary obligations will stay grey even when executed flawlessly. Sometimes what helps is testing simple finiteness: clearly defining today’s perimeter and knowing exactly where the finish line sits. In thick, confusing work, finiteness might look like tackling a single concrete example instead of storming the entire fortress. If the tweak fails, that is simply data about an unsuccessful attempt, not proof of laziness. And for goodness’ sake, do not invent “stimulating challenges” around hazardous or high-stakes operations. Chasing excitement never overrides standard operating procedures, safety guidelines, and the established procedure for responding when focus fails.

III. Why Do I Need This Time?

You can understand a task down to the millimeter and still have no earthly idea why you should sacrifice your evening to it. Classic scenario: someone plows through a dense treatise simply because they once resolved to become “more cultured”. The text is right there, but there is no living question driving the reading. The lofty, abstract value of education refuses to automatically sprinkle pixie dust over every tedious paragraph. Sometimes it is wiser to narrow your ambition: track down how the author defends one controversial claim or unpack a single term. That kind of target can at least be reviewed. And doing so does not require burning all your books or expecting every worthwhile endeavor to feel like a non-stop carnival.

Back in 1890, William James tied voluntary attention to that very “remote interest”. This is an excerpt of historical psychology from the nineteenth century, not a modern benchmark for how long anyone should sit still. In daily reality, a remote interest can be quite down-to-earth: handing off a project to someone counting on it, troubleshooting a broken gadget, or learning how to state a point without stumbling. But mouthing an inspirational slogan changes nothing—the mind needs a visible link between the current slog and that horizon. If that link is nowhere to be found, it is more honest to admit the gap than to beat yourself up with chants of “I must feel passionate about this”. The goal might be sterling, while the chosen vehicle to get there is utterly broken.

Meaning does not have to be private and lofty, either. A great deal of dull work is done strictly for someone else: filing paperwork, cleaning up a room, pulling an oar on a team. Here, you can simply honor an agreement and openly acknowledge that there is zero thrill involved, without plastering on a fake grin. A further question arises when external obligations devour every waking hour while your own interests are shelved forever. At that stage, the conversation moves from psychology to tangible agreements and workload redistribution. Yet that transition must rest on concrete facts, not on theatrical outbursts about a cruel fate or cosmic injustice triggered by one bad evening.

IV. A Pause Without the Demand to Be Useful

The inverse neurosis is just as persistent: the stubborn belief that every unclaimed second must yield a measurable return on investment. Picture an aimless stroll: the walker has barely rounded the corner before their brain starts calculating how to monetize the time—map out a startup, train mindfulness, or at least shoot some aesthetic content for social media. You could do that, of course. But you could also just let a walk be a walk, if circumstances allow. Boredom does not hand you a warrant to transform downtime into a second shift of high-output hustle. The nagging “what value must I extract from this?” is often just the work mode forgetting to power down. That is one possible reading of the scene, not a definitive diagnosis of underlying trauma.

Unstructured rest is also under no obligation to deliver instant, wave-like bliss. If free time feels awkward and uncoordinated, that does not mean the rest is broken. It helps to name what you actually wanted: to lie like a vegetable, to be entertained by a ready-made show, or to feel like your day actually belongs to you? These wants do not equal one another, and checking one off does not deliver the others. A ready-made evening itinerary may reduce the agony of choice, but does not have to provide a sense of living on your own terms. Conversely, your capacity to choose may be entirely intact, but right now you simply want someone else to hand you an easy task. You are not obligated to constantly prove your agency to the universe every single minute.

There is also a massive gulf between a chosen pause and a captive one. Sitting in a waiting room on call, you are technically free, yet you cannot walk away, dive into an ambitious project, or ignore the clock. You are on a leash. Cheerful platitudes about “doing what you love in line” crumble against reality. You might fiddle with something trivial, or you can just admit the obvious: waiting is inherently inconvenient and annoying. Not every queue needs to be rebranded as a personal development retreat. Often the real question is organizational: can you get a concrete timeframe, enable notifications, or agree on a different process? The answer hinges on practical possibilities and permissions, and the waiting itself does not have to become enjoyable just to look suitably mindful.

Poking at a pause only makes sense when it is voluntary and kept within reasonable bounds. Nobody is advising you to sit staring at a wall until boredom evaporates, take a vow of silence, or repent because you put on a silly video. Sometimes it is enough to admit: the scenery needs changing. Sometimes it pays to slow down and see where the shoe pinches. For that kind of test, it is critical to pick a small, reversible step. We are not trying out for a gold medal in stoic endurance. If your self-examination morphs into a suffocating exam on spiritual maturity, pull the plug. You do not need to fill the resulting quiet with a thesis explaining why the experiment flopped.

V. Diversion and the Question That Lingers

In fragment 139 of his Pensées, Blaise Pascal meditates on how people run toward diversion to drown out thoughts of their own frailty and mortality. This is a distinct Christian philosophical perspective; only that specific excerpt was read, not the entire volume. The translator of the available English edition is unknown, so there are no direct quotes here. That vantage point asks what remains once the frantic shuffle of activities stops, but it does not dispense clinical evaluations to a bored modern citizen. Not every cat video is a desperate flight from existential dread, and not every quiet room hides the terror of the abyss. There is no need to hammer an ancient theological reflection into the mold of laboratory metrics.

Take a hypothetical case: someone cycles through browser tabs, while in the background an unresolved, heavy conversation keeps resurfacing. No one is forcing you to jump into that fire right this second. But it helps to separate two distinct tasks: spending a pleasant evening or untangling a knotty conflict. The former will not magically fix the latter, nor should it be expected to. Taking a breather is an entirely sound strategy. An honest formulation sounds like: “Tonight I am zoning out; I will deal with the hard conversation tomorrow”. That holds water only if tomorrow genuinely offers a realistic chance to address it. Kicking the can down the calendar does not settle the dispute by itself.

And sometimes, there simply is no colossal existential void lurking behind your boredom. Fabricating one just to make your introspection look profound is silly. Sometimes reality is laughably mundane: the options are lousy, energy is spent, your friends are busy, and your favorite show ended. Acknowledging that plain flatness is vastly more honest than performing amateur psychoanalysis. Pascal’s thoughts remain compelling for broadening our questions, but they become ridiculous when used to explain why someone is wiped out after a rough shift. Engaging with classical thinkers is fruitful when it generates questions; turning it into a reflex that dismisses simple answers as “shallow” is unhelpful. Another author’s philosophy does not oblige you to force your entire life into their vocabulary.

VI. Who Gets to Call Someone Else Boring?

Boredom turns toxic the moment it gets pinned onto a person. Someone sits through a dinner, zones out, and delivers the verdict: “They are boring”. Perhaps there really is zero common ground. But it could just as easily be a clash of expectations: one came to hammer out practical plans, while the other wanted to unload their week over tea. You are under no obligation to fall in love with every conversation. Even so, there is a world of difference between diagnosing someone’s entire personality and noting a temporary lack of connection. Saying “I’m having a hard time tuning into this topic right now” is far more accurate than an arrogant “You are a bore”.

It is also worth checking your own footprint in the standoff: did you actually ask questions, pitch an idea, or state what you came for? This is not about taking the blame for a lifeless chat; it is simply drawing the line between what you can influence and what you cannot control in someone else. In a hypothetical scenario, two people sit like statues waiting for the other to take the lead, and then both conclude the other is dull. A single clear sentence might have cleared the air, though it certainly would not guarantee soulful harmony. Sometimes, after clearing the decks, you realize there is genuinely nothing to talk about—and that is a perfectly fine outcome. Politeness does not require faking fascination where none exists.

We turn that exact same gavel on ourselves just as easily. Behind “I have nothing interesting to say” there may be the fact that the day was routine, the crowd feels alien, you do not feel like baring your soul, or the social format feels awkward. That in no way justifies the sweeping conclusion: “I am a boring person”. You could offer one small detail and see how it lands, or you can stay silent. The right to keep your life to yourself remains intact even when others expect free entertainment. You are under no obligation to jump through hoops just to present a sparkling version of yourself to every passerby.

In partnerships, it is equally vital to remember the right to not act as a full-time entertainer. If one person implicitly assumes the other must extinguish their boredom on command, agreements need an overhaul. It is completely legitimate to desire shared time and suggest it openly, without treating a partner’s refusal as definitive proof of falling out of love. You can agree on dedicated couple time and preserve individual space to zone out separately. These are editorial observations, not family law. But the core distinction stands: a need for connection can be voiced directly, but being drafted as someone else's default antidote to boredom is not an automatic clause in a relationship. Unspoken expectations that no one has brought to light are worth checking first.

VII. Dull Work and Hard Constraints

It is easy to hold forth on philosophy when you have plenty of leeway. But what if you are on duty, stuck waiting for a bureaucracy to reply, or chained to a repetitive conveyor belt? People offering advice like “just discover a higher purpose in it” are understandably irritating. No amount of “higher purpose” cancels physical exhaustion, grants missing administrative authority, or rewires an operational process. When the grind must be done, it is far more practical to map out the actual boundaries: what is genuinely within your control? The sequence of steps, the timing of a coffee break, grouping identical chores, or asking a supervisor for clarification? The available wiggle room might be minuscule, but admitting its limits is far cleaner than beating yourself up for a “bad attitude” inside a setup you never designed. Philosophy does not substitute for basic workplace organization.

Picture a security officer who must remain at their station until the relief shift arrives. They know exactly why the post matters, but the hands of the clock barely crawl. They have no mandate to launch a creative side quest, stream a series, or wander off. Managing boredom has to stay strictly within the rules: say, scheduling an authorized break or clarifying handover procedures. Freelancing is off-limits here. Making “personal interest” the primary metric where public safety is at stake is particularly absurd. Boredom can prompt an operational discussion; the outcome depends on tasks, permissions, and tangible conditions, not on chasing novel diversions.

In discretionary personal projects, it pays to check for over-engineering: have you burdened yourself with unnecessary dead weight? Suppose a simple prototype is all that is needed, but the creator insists on building a spaceship with bells and whistles nobody asked for. They drown in routine, grow intensely bored, and simultaneously forbid themselves from cutting corners. Ask yourself: who actually expects this extra architecture, and what collapses if you ditch it? The answer will either confirm cold necessity or grant permission to trim the fat. This is not an excuse to drop commitments the moment boredom strikes; it is a way to separate genuine agreements from self-inflicted demands that still require justification.

VIII. Change a Single Condition

After sorting through these distinctions, there is a strong temptation to map out an epic master plan to crush boredom once and for all. But engineering a monolithic self-improvement program is itself an excellent way to invite more tedium. It is far smarter to pick exactly one condition for a tiny trial. Getting bogged down in a complex manual? Isolate a single example, look up one unfamiliar term, or find out what specific deliverable is expected at the end. If the problem is an absent objective, consulting a glossary will not fix it. If you are stuck on an incomprehensible instruction, grand speeches about life goals are beside the point. A test needs to probe a specific hypothesis, not show off how heroically you can “work on yourself” until you drop.

To keep yourself honest, write down your hypothesis before starting. Otherwise, your mind will execute a graceful pirouette: if things work, it will claim it knew the answer all along; if they flop, it will pretend it was testing something else entirely. Suppose the plan was to see whether setting a clear stopping point makes it easier to sit down and start. You finished that one step, but the wider project still makes your stomach churn. Those are two distinct questions: the step was completed, but whether starting became easier still needs checking; the broader problem may remain. There is no need to discount the step taken, but do not pretend everything is smooth sailing now. This is how you test inflated expectations and evaluate the next step without assuming illusions will magically vanish.

You can track results in plain everyday language. Did starting feel less awful? Did you complete the targeted step? Does the idea of continuing still make you cringe? There is no need to chart mood scores or calculate engagement metrics. Nor should you mistake a fleeting five-minute spark for a final victory over the problem. A tweak might provide brief relief or simply reveal that your initial hypothesis was completely off base. Both outcomes are acceptable; their value for the next step still needs to be weighed. This is the editorial logic of an ordinary trial, not a patented therapeutic cure. It is proposed only where conditions can be adjusted safely and voluntarily; high-risk operations and medical care follow entirely different rules.

If a trial fails miserably, adjust the hypothesis or call it a day. Nobody promised that attempt number ten will magically produce a breakthrough. You can honestly admit: what you actually need right now is sleep or a chat with a human being, not another task. That decision applies strictly to today’s specific rut. It does not define your entire existence and guarantees no perpetual bliss. A sensible test always preserves the right to a negative result: “This particular tweak didn’t work”. And that is vastly healthier than the usual drama: “I am completely hopeless” or “Nothing has any meaning”.

IX. When a Single Word Is Not Enough

The word “boredom” can be a convenient conversation starter, but it makes for a miserable conclusion. If someone flatly states that they haven’t felt an ounce of interest in anything for months, lecturing them to “try harder” is both stupid and cruel. Here you have to look at duration, how far ordinary functioning has eroded, and whether professional support is warranted. This article does not diagnose conditions and does not suggest curing serious mental health crises with a volume of philosophy. When apathy settles in deep, disrupts daily life, and feels alarming, it is time to speak with a professional. Dialing up the difficulty of your hobbies is no substitute for appropriate care when there is a protracted loss of interest.

You do not need absolute certainty about root causes before asking for support. But it helps to anchor the request to reality: “Could we just sit together for a bit? I feel awful,” “Help me reorganize this work backlog,” “I suspect I need a doctor; help me find one”. These requests have different destinations. A friend is great for company, a manager for workloads, a doctor for treatment. One beleaguered loved one is not meant to be a paramedic, project manager, and therapist all rolled into one. And you definitely should not impose your own pet formulas for “finding purpose” on someone else.

A dull evening on the sofa, grueling working conditions, and a prolonged inability to engage with the world are entirely different magnitudes of trouble; dumping them into the same bucket is a mistake. The conclusion of your observation may simply hit a firm boundary: my own lay speculations end here. That does not invalidate earlier reflections—they may have helped frame the question, or they may have left it open. And if an immediate risk to life or safety arises, all philosophical musings must step aside: contact local emergency services immediately. Saving a life and unpacking root causes do not have to happen in the same order.

X. Returning to Engagement Without a Grand Verdict

Once the fog of boredom thins out a bit, there is no need to scramble to invent an epic life mission. You can simply wrap up one loose end, head to bed, admit that good company is unavailable tonight, or schedule a meetup for tomorrow. The scale of the response should match the scale of the problem. If you realize after a frustrating evening that you were not craving entertainment, but rather another human being, that is hardly proof that you are a tragic lone wolf who must tear up all relationships. It simply means tomorrow you might propose a specific joint activity instead of throwing out a vague “we should hang out sometime”. A precise, grounded proposal is one possible next step, rather than handing down a grand verdict on your personality.

Real engagement with life does not have to look like unbroken, ecstatic cheer. It can be a quiet, steady effort: working through a single paragraph, tightening a screw, listening to someone until they finish their thought. Do not demand that a small gesture instantly restore your zest for the entire cosmos. It is enough to register: right here, a connection happened. Tomorrow it might not, and the sky will not fall. Do not turn a single workable tactic into a lifelong obligation. The freedom to experiment includes the right not to enshrine every small finding into a permanent dogma.

We started with the tired complaint “nothing to distract me”. By the end, far more honest phrases might take its place: ran out of steam; unclear why this matters; longing for connection; these conditions are beyond my control; time to see a doctor. Not every evening gets a tidy label, and plenty of questions will remain up in the air. But drawing these distinctions can help you choose a next step without the usual compulsion to pass a final judgment on yourself, the people around you, or the universe at large. Boredom is just an unpleasant experience; there is no need to romanticize it. Yet when discussed with precision, it sometimes becomes clearer what you can influence and what sits squarely outside your control.

What This Means in Practice

Pick one recent, mundane episode that you reflexively labeled “boring”. Steer clear of situations involving emergencies, safety protocols, or an obvious breakdown in well-being. Note down the setting, the available task, and what you were actually expecting from that block of time. For example: “Put on a film, but really just wanted someone to talk to”. That is a hypothetical example; it does not dictate the correct reason. If there was no clear expectation, write that down honestly. Do not invent pseudo-profound motives just to make the entry look clever.

Break down three core questions: was it clear what needed to be done; was doing it manageable right then; was it obvious why you personally needed that task? An answer of “haven't the foggiest” is completely valid. If relevant, toss in a fourth: was there an actual opportunity to choose the conditions? This is an editorial cheat sheet, not a validated clinical instrument. Do not use it to grade someone else’s character, accuse loved ones of being lazy, or concoct medical diagnoses. The single goal here is to clarify where to step next in your own everyday rut.

If conditions allow and it causes no harm, test one microscopic tweak: clarify a confusing step, shrink the task down to a bite-sized piece, invite someone to share the chore, or simply turn off the dull movie if watching it was voluntary. State your expectation in down-to-earth words: “I want to understand one example,” “I want to see if a friend is free”. Do not promise yourself that boredom will be banished forever. After the attempt, write down what actually happened. A mismatch between expectation and reality is a cue to adjust the hypothesis, not to bang your head against the wall while screaming about your incompetence.

Wrap things up with one concrete decision or a frankly unresolved question. You have every right to do absolutely nothing today. You can acknowledge that moving forward requires a conversation with someone else. If this note-taking begins to annoy you, amplifies a foul mood, or feels like forced labor, drop it immediately. There are no quotas for sitting around waiting for insights. Keeping this log day in, day out is entirely unnecessary; it has value only as long as it helps you see the present moment with a bit more clarity. Its utility is measured by its fitness for the next practical step, not by the thickness of your journal or the sheer volume of psychological meanings uncovered.

Key Quotation

“light and shade”

William James, The Principles of Psychology, chapter XI, opening paragraph on selective interest. A short figurative excerpt from the original English. It serves as an image of how experience is organized, not as a promise that any effort of attention will abolish boredom.

Connections Between Traditions

Historical Psychology of James: The question of how interest ties attention to an object. Not a contemporary concentration standard and not a diagnosis.
Christian Philosophy of Pascal: The question of diversion and human vulnerability. Not a laboratory explanation for all bouts of boredom; a selected excerpt, without direct quotations.
Contemporary Psychology of Boredom: Eastwood and colleagues—theoretical focus on engagement; Westgate and Wilson—distinguishing attention and meaning, underload and overload. These are different models based on limited readings of the source materials.
Editorial Synthesis: One can distinguish task, engagement, and expectations of time, while preserving the right to rest, the adjustment of conditions, and appropriate support. No consensus among all authors on a single nature of boredom is claimed.

Primary Sources

S1. William James. The Principles of Psychology (1890), chapter XI, Attention. Selected paragraphs on interest and voluntary attention were read, not the entire volume. Chapter text, York University. The copyright status of this web edition is undetermined; the US public domain status of the original book is listed separately in the Project Gutenberg catalog.
S2. Blaise Pascal. Pensées, fragment 139, Divertissement. A selected fragment of an available English edition was read; translator undetermined, no direct quotations included. Text.
S3. John D. Eastwood, Alexandra Frischen, Mark J. Fenske, Daniel Smilek. The Unengaged Mind: Defining Boredom in Terms of Attention. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2012, 7(5). DOI: 10.1177/1745691612456044. Only the publisher's abstract was read; the paywalled full text was not read. Publisher.
S4. Erin C. Westgate, Timothy D. Wilson. Boring Thoughts and Bored Minds: The MAC Model of Boredom and Cognitive Engagement (2018). DOI: 10.1037/rev0000097. Selected definitions, the model outline, method descriptions, and limitations were read; not the complete text and not the raw data. Author PDF page. The document indicates personal use without broad distribution; the file, tables, and direct quotes are not included in this package.
S5. NHS, England. Where to get urgent help for mental health. Urgent help sections and dated footer were read; English helpline numbers are not transferred to other countries. Limited strictly to the threshold of urgency, without assessing personal health status. Official page.

About the Authors

Andrey Zarinsh is an author and the founder of the United Wisdom project. He explores themes of internal transformation, the unity of traditions, intercultural dialogue, and contemporary spiritual discipline. Instagram: @andrey.zarinsh.

Maria Evilkut is a co-author of United Wisdom. Alongside research work, she seeks to test these ideas in practice and observe how principles of unity and mutual understanding operate in real life between people and cultures. Instagram: @ilkutki.