Today, I decided to get bored. In as much as it can be called a decision, that is. I mean, you cannot tell your brain, "Your time to get bored starts... NOW!" Can you?

I tried anyway. I switched off the data and network on my phone and decided to just sit and stare into the world. Of course, boredom is a finicky companion and refused to perform for my pleasure. I looked over at the mango trees in the garden opposite, blossoming early. They stood side by side; one, clearly in her teens and the other, a towering matriarch. Both sporting pale yellow flowers and parrot-green mangoes that had arrived a whole season early.

Like a distracted monkey, my brain latched on to that thought. I ruminated on the fact that this detail about mango seasons revealed how old I am. I thought of my childhood scores of years ago, of sun-dappled vacations, when mangoes arrived with the ripening of summer. The monkey wandered again. And I started thinking about when the seasons had started shifting, to bring us mangoes in early January.

My fingers fidgeted. Why not look it up, I thought. But was this just an excuse to grab my phone? (The monkey clearly liked running around.) 82 unlocks, my digital wellbeing app had told me the other day. The number of times I did not get bored the old-fashioned way. And instead chose to do it by doomscrolling. A number I was slightly ashamed of.

I chided myself. I am a Gen X-er. As a child, I have reread a book over 10 times because I had no way of knowing when the sequel would land up in the local library. Waiting was our thing. We thought nothing of waiting for friends, family, lovers, letters. We waited at bus stops, cinema halls, outside restaurants, on beaches, on parked bikes, in the silence of our bedrooms, swinging on gates, in libraries, by landline phones, and in empty corridors. Almost everything good in life arrived at the end of a wait. Waiting was the slow lub-dup of our hearts quickening when we glimpsed a familiar silhouette, heard a beloved voice, grasped at empty hope.

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Waiting was our thing. We thought nothing of waiting for friends, family, lovers, letters. We waited at bus stops, cinema halls, outside restaurants, on beaches, on parked bikes, in the silence of our bedrooms, swinging on gates, in libraries, by landline phones, and in empty corridors. Almost everything good in life arrived at the end of a wait.

Now, waiting was punctuated by restless thumbs and multiple dopamine hits in quick succession. Brain rot, they called it. And likened it to boredom. But it isn't the same as boredom, is it? It is actually the veritable opposite. Brain rot was a heavy, humid blanket of dullness, where wearniness bred aplenty and refused to give birth to sleep.

Boredom, meanwhile, was that fertile land through which flowed plans and stories, pranks of dubitable heritage, and threads of philosophy, cooking disasters, new recipes, songs. And many a time, just good ol' rest and blissful sleep. We were told boredom was the eneny. Unlimited data, uninterrupted access to the internet and palm-held screens would liberate us, they said. We would be perpetually entertained. Life would be so much more enjoyable, so much more fun.

One of the first things I learned about computers, back in the 90s, was the core principle of GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out. This was how computers worked, they taught us, patting the dabba screens of yore. Well, it's the way the human brain works, too.

And maybe this is why boredom should actually be something to be treasured. A whole new world exists on the other side of the boredom. If nothing else, there's always sleep. That most elusive yet most important resource. Put that way, boredom doesn't seem too bad, does it?

I wrote most of this by hand; yes, I was that bored