I’m bored! It’s great!

Lately, I’ve been into being bored.

It’s great!

I think it started when I was catching up on Sabrina Carpenter’s Coachella Weekend 2 set, and Madonna appeared on stage(!!!) I leapt up from my sofa and squealed – how could I contain my excitement at Juno × Vogue?! Yet, all I could see was a sea of phones and a stood-still audience. Apparently, a huge majority of the crowd could contain their excitement.

Without making this place a phone-hating platform (I fear that is my niche, lately), it struck me how dystopian life really is these days. To attend a festival and be laser-focused on how it appears you were at the festival (by capturing photos and videos) instead of how it felt to be there (by living in the moment). To set up endless shots and make sure you’ve documented a moment in enough varieties. I can’t imagine how Sabrina and Madonna – my close personal friends, lol – felt to look out into a sea of phones. I can imagine how it feels for friends to say ‘just look at my Instagram!’ Instead of telling me their stories from their weekend.

I feel sad for the generation that is growing up not knowing or understanding how great life is when you experience first, instead of your camera experiencing it first. I feel sad for how commonplace it is to fill every last moment with scrolling, or catching up on texts, or catching up on emails, or putting a video on while you complete another task, or watching Reels and TikTok on 2x the speed so you can consume even more fleeting content.

Still mildly burned out, I often return home from work and simply sit.

I sit in the car with a window open. I sit in the living room with no devices on.

Some of my friends find it bizarre. Yet I appreciate these five minutes more than most in my day. Five minutes of counteracting the overstimulation of modern-day living, of being present and still, of resetting my nervous system before having to return to what living in 2026 requires of me.

Lately, I’ve been continuing to practice de-stimulating myself and to practice being bored.

Hey, I’m not perfect. I’m guilty of checking my messages while heading out the door. I’m guilty of putting a YouTube video on to alleviate the sheer mundanity of folding laundry and putting laundry away. But I’m also finding such joy in letting my brain be at rest that it’s one-upping the feeling of being comforted by noise wherever I can get it.

I’m finding joy in one task at a time. I’m finding joy in discomfort. I’m finding joy in XXX. I’m delighting in reading (as always), just one story at a time. I’m finding joy in noticing where my mind naturally goes when there is nothing to occupy my brain. I’m finding joy in a couple of daily walks. I’m finding joy in being completely terrible at making Chinese knots. I’m finding joy in remembering I’m a pretty great embroiderer and cross-stitcher. I’m delighting in designing our wedding invitations with no outside noise. I’m finding joy in the soundtrack of my life being everyday noise. I’m finding joy in ‘nothing crazy to share’ at girls’ night; just me, my cosy circle and our joy.