Summary: Do nothing, never do anything: it forces you to reflect and to make free associations, which can prove to be useful.

Since childhood, we have learned that not having a busy mind should automatically make us feel guilty.
This can even be understood from our automatic use of words: we tend to call dead moments those when we are not busy, and we end up associating them with boredom.
So we end up trying to occupy our free time in all possible ways, looking for the first distractions available often without satisfying us in the least, like when we automatically take out our mobile phone and start shaking.
In short, as if we were unable to enjoy the moments of emptiness and exploit their hidden potential.
It is an atlas of contemporary distractions, a guide to regain control of one's free time, despite social media, not very smart work and a world in crisis. All this, starting from the analysis of the technological, social and economic changes that have upset our relationship over time especially in the last twenty years, he tells me on the phone.
Below is the rest of our conversation.
VICE: Hi Pietro, where did the idea for the book come from?
Pietro Minto: Hello!
About three years ago I started thinking about doing a book on boredom, of which I'm a huge fan and user, we could say.
I began to inquire: there were already many books on boredom, and they were often very boring.
In early 2020, I pinned the idea of making a book about funny boredom somewhere.
The pandemic acted as a catalyst for this and other ideas I had in mind, and here we are.
Let's start with the basics for a moment: the definition of boredom.
How has it changed over time?
Boredom and mysticism have always been half-sisters, two spheres that like to get in touch.
with Christianity that the discussion on boredom became deeper, but also more weighty, we could say: at a certain point some Christian ascetics came to consider it something demonic, so to speak.
In the East (but also in the West, outside the great Abrahamic religions) they have always treated it with greater grace, without paranoia or feelings of guilt.
a human state of mind that must not be fought: it must be known and understood, but the goal is never to overcome boredom.
Yet today when we say in our free time that we are bored, we say it in the negative.
Leisure time itself is neither boring nor fun; time freed from something, a plot of land on which no one has built anything.
Its use the what, the how and when we do something that allows the formation of moments of boredom.
I treat boredom as the central point of a somewhat more complex mechanism than our time management, at a time when we have strong distractions and forces interested in stealing it, and filling it with things that don't really interest us.
There are a lot of inputs, each connected to social networks, Youtube, streaming services.
In such a context, one would think that this is a world in which boredom does not exist while boredom continues to exist, only less recognizable.
The number of stimuli is therefore not important in the definition of boredom: the heart of the speech is the little conscious use we make of our time, whether it is busy or free.
Give me an example that affects everyone a little.
Doomscrolling: when you happen to stare at your mobile phone for minutes, or even hours, mostly social media.
You shake as if a magnet were slowly drawing you into a black hole.
one of those experiences that later makes you say, Wait, what am I doing?
Why am I here?
How did I get there?
So the problem is not boredom itself, which often has positive implications, but the time we waste without realizing it trying to get around it.
Realizing that an hour spent shaking an hour spent doing something, a way to understand that you can set aside ten minutes to do something else.
To say: even staring at the wall and having unexpected implications.
What are the positive aspects of this type of boredom?
There are several studies that show, for example, how boredom is to be understood as a feeling of emptiness at a time when not much happens stimulates creativity.
precisely in such a situation that I came up with the idea of writing a book about it.
In addition, boredom linked to mental well-being, to be understood as an island, a moment of introspection that allows you to clarify.
Do nothing, never do anything: it forces you to reflect and to make free associations, which can prove to be useful.
It is therefore important to regain possession of time, or rather the awareness of its management.
Positive boredom is an excellent antidote to the dullness of an existence full of impulses and notifications.
To feel less angry, sad, frustrated because time slips a little less on you.
Could this not being able to relax during moments of boredom be linked to the fear of missing out on important things?
Many of us, to varying degrees, have been affected by Fomo [fear of missing out], characterized by the desire to continually stay in touch with what other people are doing, and often linked to social envy and the fear of rhyme outside the right circle.
Then for during the first big lockdown, which started in March 2020, just as many felt relieved: all that pressure disappeared, and there was also time to wonder: how many events have I forced myself to go to and which actually didn't interest me, that I didn't enjoy or that you don't remember anything about?
A well-known blogger, Anil Dash, invented an acronym to react to the Fomo: the Jomo [Joy of missing out], the joy of missing something.
In practice: from 30/35 years upwards at some point it is also good to think But you know that c, I don't go to that thing there and I'm happy to stay at home. I, to close the circle, I proposed the acronym Nomo [Noncuranza of Missing Out] or totally give a damn when you think about what you are missing.
There is also another aspect, which emerged especially during the pandemic: the myth of hyper-productivity.
You, however, prove that even multitasking fries our brains. In recent years, the ability to multitask has become an essential skill, true or presumed.
In reality, as shown by various studies that I quote in the book, the human being is not strictly structured by continuous switches: each activity to be carried out requires a different degree of attention, ability, training.
Different jobs need different mindsets, they touch different areas of the brain, and changing every five seconds is not impossible, but in the long run a source of stress, it can exhaust you.
We are mono-taskers: programmed to do one thing at a time.
In the book you also talk about people who have tried or managed to monetize their free time.
Are you part of this trend of wanting to optimize everything?
The very high number of cases of burnout between youtubers and influencers is the demonstration of how the transformation of one's life into content in a continuous cycle can be risky.
It depends from case to case, of course, but we need strong barriers between public and private, work and personal life.
The trend you are referring to has many causes: economic, mostly, given by precarious work and unemployment; technological, in the sense that it is now possible to do these things (previously not); and still social, of status, in the sense that influencers and content creators are desired and envied, the new players.
They are rich (very few), famous (some) and do nothing from morning to night. The reality is different and, in my opinion, potentially destructive.
To make the point, you say that time has broken.
What does it mean?
Time is fine, of course.
our perception that it has been upset.
We are living in a traumatic moment because the perception of time is no longer linear, it is twisted.
The technological developments of the last decades have upset the concepts of speed, contemporaneity and proximity.
We are in a middle phase, in eighty years maybe we will have found a new approach to time management, which at the moment seems increasingly confused.
My book talks about this phase, and above all to those who have even a single vague memory of the previous ones.
Illustration by Tartila / Adobe Stock.

From Vice