Boredom: the great engine of creativity

Wayne Thiebaud, Waterland, 1996. link

 Craig Mod, walker and writer, from Lit Hub "Craig Mod and the Creative Power of Walking"

When I’m not talking, just walking (which is most of the time), I try to cultivate the most bored state of mind imaginable. A total void of stimulation beyond the immediate environment. My rules: No news, no social media, no podcasts, no music. No “teleporting,” you could say. The phone, the great teleportation device, the great murderer of boredom. And yet, boredom: the great engine of creativity. I now believe with all my heart that it’s only in the crushing silences of boredom—without all that black-mirror dopamine — that you can access your deepest creative wells. And for so many people these days, they’ve never so much as attempted to dip in a ladle, let alone dive down into those uncomfortable waters made accessible through boredom.

For me, from this boredom—this blankness of mind as I walk past sometimes fields and sometimes giant gambling pachinko parlors—words flow. I can’t stop them. My mind begins writing about what we see and refuses to shut up. That gap created by a lack of artificial stimulation is filled—thanks to the magic plasticity of our brains—with words and more words. Without Candy Crush, an inverted event horizon spawns, and out shoots: thoughts. I dictate as I walk. From afar, it looks like I’m either on a board meeting call with a CEO or am insane. Amidst all of this, in the lulls of dictation, I photograph—people, objects, mountains, trees, stumps, deer, shrines, temples, dogs depressed and dogs joyful, homes well used and those abandoned.

Eventually, I arrive at an inn or hotel (my favorites are anonymous so-called “business hotels,” cheap things dotting the archipelago, uniform, dependable, with fast internet and washing machines and, most importantly, silence). My feet? Hot in spots, a bit wonky, eager to shed their shoes. Each night, I spend three, four, or five hours collating the photographs, compiling my notes, doing laundry, creating an archive. By the time I sit down at night, my body is tired but my mind—since I’ve been dictating throughout the day, collecting moments and snippets of dialogue—is electric, like a crazy horse kicking at a barn door. It kicks the door open and off we go—writing two, three, four thousand words. They get edited into something mildly coherent, paired with a dozen photographs, and sent out in what I call a “pop-up newsletter.”