This article really resonated with me both in regard to the mundane and profound boredom aspects. For the mundane, obsessively refreshing hacker news is my doom scrolling (with the justification that I occasionally find content like this). While the profound boredom experienced during the start of Covid made me realise I wasn’t living up to what I thought were my values. I then started volunteering with the local emergency service which has been one of the best life decisions I’ve made.
I’d say that if you’re constantly refreshing Hacker News, you’re a good candidate for ebooks on HN-like subjects. I made a conscious decision to switch to that from HN and Reddit, and I’d say I’ve cut my usage of both by about 75%. Which was a good outcome for me, because it switched me from learning many topics shallowly, to learning a few from ebooks deeply (example, Soni’s The Founders book on PayPal’s history).
I strongly recommend building a little instinct in yourself for "what if HN search could help with this question" - for books especially: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21900498
Personally I read every history of a startup or important tech figure that I can find in my library’s ebook borrowing program, which can easily occupy several years.
My state government maintains a online volunteering opportunities register that was really useful. Local library also had a selection of organisations looking for volunteers. I initially over committed by signing up for too many things before cutting back and focusing on doing the emergency work wholeheartedly.
I think it would be great to have an ebook interface that shuffled the content in a way that mimicked some aspects of HN, Reddit, and maybe even Tinder.
The authors were digging in the correct place to find gold. However, limiting the discussion to “exceptional” (not really) lockdowns-as-a-hot-topic-in-media, and turning to lifeless non-conclusions like “opportunities for self-actualization” and “discovery of passions” were their ways of scuttling.
A good book tying “well-being” to cultural perception of time itself is “Time and the Dog: Society and Depression” by Maria Rita Kehl. Unfortunately, its English translation, announced in 2018, never materialized for some reason, and now, it seems, Verso Books has removed the book from the website. Well, if you're bored, you can always learn Portuguese or Russian to read it.
If you can read a blog post by 1 person on this subject seriously, you can read a summary of an interview of 15 people. I downloaded the epub. This line sold me to read it.
>In this article, we coin the term ‘mundane emotions’ to draw attention to everyday routines and the distinctive emotions that flow from them (De Certeau 1988; Lefebvre 2004). For example, commuting, cleaning or cooking routines, for some, may provide precious moments of comfort and calm after the daily grind. These very same routines may leave others feeling empty and bemoaning the absence of spontaneity, excitement and joy in their lives
> For example, commuting, cleaning or cooking routines, for some, may provide precious moments of comfort and calm
What a remarkable idea! I cannot imagine what that experience would be like, though seeing it called out that way makes me realize I must have always been encountering people with such inclinations, and simply failing to understand their choices.
Using public laundry... It's a very long time ago but I remember that atmosphere, sometimes I talked to other people there or read magazines they had lying around or took my own book to read!!
I think there’s value in talking extensively to 15 people and writing a paper reflecting on their different human experiences. The paper even handily posits a hypothesis on the role of boredom in everyone’s life.
I too think there can be more value in an in-depth study of a relatively small number of people over another study on the same subject that asks a few thousand people to respond to just a few superficial questions.
