Reclaiming Boredom

"It is rare that we allow ourselves to simply observe the world," points out Richard Newton in his book, The Little Book of Thinking Big (Capstone, 2014).

"It's all too easy to reach for a device to occupy our minds, to plug music into our ears and drown out our subconscious, to invite social media noise into our heads, or catapult angry birds at forts and switch off our brains altogether. Noticing, contemplation, inspiration, the next big thing often arises out of boredom; an unsung champion of thinking big. Smartphones have sucked the juice out of boredom. What used to be a rich and fertile compost for idle noticing and contemplation, is now desiccated. Like grains of sand, boredom has been blown away by the distractions of silicon circuitry.

"Reclaim it! Boredom surfaces ideas like a grow bag produces tomatoes."

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