"We're all overstimulated," said Ms. Lee. "I think it's important to stop all that for a while and see what several hours of being bored really feels like."
There's a difference? To me, overstimulation is incredibly boring. Overstimulation is the siren that tempts me to the next thing before I grasp the thing in front of me. Overstimulation is the nagging fear of missing something that makes me miss everything. I have to narrow things down and slow things down before I can engage with anything. Like alcohol, overstimulation is a depressant that feels deceptively like a stimulant, and reliably makes me stupider though it often makes me feel smarter. Maybe I'm just too slow for the 21st century.
Overstimulation isn't boring, otherwise people
wouldn't seek for it.
Overstimulation is emotionally very engaging, but
unfulfilling. It's a short emotional high, which
people want to feel all the time, so they're
searching for the next stimulus, in the hope to
find the endless high.
But by doing this, they will never get into a
fulfilling state, which isn't a emotional hight.
It's a more settled but longing state.
IBM should host next year's. Two years ago I was forced to sit through a three-hour talk of theirs about ajax (which they thought was new) and OCRing licence plates.
"Then he began reciting the names of every single one of 415 colors listed in a paint catalog: damson dream, dauphin, dayroom yellow, dead salmon…and on and on and on."
I had that paint catalogue! We made a game out of trying to remember the names based on their (frequently ludicrous) descriptions. Good time killer on a long journey.
Reminded me of the moment in Stockhausen's Hymnen when the names of each shade of red in the Windor & Newtown water colour range are repeated several times in various languages.
I think it's very true that most people are overstimulated, but I don't really get how people find a lack of stimulation boring. The things described in the article definitely do not sound interesting, but I can only imagine letting my mind wander off into more interesting/productive territory when confronted by them. The possibility of just wallowing in a lack of interest seems kind of lacking in creativity...
This article doesn't explain how boredom is "pleasurable" or why people would want to go to a boredom conference. Could somebody explain it to me? Is this some kind of a joke?
I was that kid that always said, "I'm bored." When I grew up, I started a lot of hobbies. Now, I'm -never- bored... Unless I want to be.
I've taken a couple vacations where my goal was to get bored. I'd pick a hobby and do it until I didn't feel like it any more, and then just kinda bum around.
When you -choose- to be bored, it's a refreshing experience. If it's forced on you, it's just painful.
I think this is an example of extremely dry English humor being absolutely baffling to Americans (I'm a bit of each, so I think I can get away with saying things like that).
From the article:
>Boring 2010 sprang to life when Mr. Ward heard that an event called the Interesting Conference had been canceled, and he sent out a joke tweet about the need to have a Boring Conference instead. He was taken aback when dozens of people responded enthusiastically.
It's not just humor, it would be good to connect with more people that find it interesting to complete tasks which most couldn't stand engaging in.
The talk mentioned on a draw in cricket is quiet interesting, I must admit that I can find a slow cricket contest very exciting for what is slightly below the surface even though the ball to ball action would be seen as dull.
I'd imagine Americans get the same thing with baseball, I watch it a little, not sure how many Americans can always keep on top of the team they support given the amount games?
I got bored halfway through this and didn't finish it. The section on the conference itself felt so much like the Onion I think it could be copied verbatim into one of their articles without seeming out of place.
Yet in trying to be boring, they ended up choosing unusual novelty topics that are relatively interesting when compared to truly dull pop culture pursuits like American Idol or Dancing With The Stars.
This one really cracked me up.