Will You Be Bored?

March 28, 2025 Cognitive Insights No Comments

What will happen when A.I. takes over most of the jobs we do today? Not just the heavy lifting, but the writing, the deciding, the producing? In a world where there’s very little that humans need to do, what will be left?

Some say we’ll be free. Others say we’ll be bored to death. Maybe both are true — depending on what we do with our boredom.

What boredom really means

We often treat boredom as a minor annoyance, but it touches something much deeper. It’s not about having nothing to do — it’s about not knowing why to do anything. In that sense, boredom is a kind of soft despair, an absence of meaningful resonance with one’s actions. It’s a disconnect between the surface of life and the inner core.

When someone says, “I’m bored,” they might be saying something closer to “I’m not meeting myself.”

This is where the tension lies — between our nature that longs for depth, and a world that increasingly pulls us into a surface-level whirlpool. The deeper self wants silence, connection, purpose. The ego wants stimulation, distraction, escape.

Drowning or meeting

Faced with boredom, modern culture offers a thousand ways to avoid it. The scroll. The snack. The next episode. Entire industries thrive on making sure we never have to sit still with ourselves. But the irony is that the more we try to drown boredom, the stronger it gets.

It’s a whirlpool: every new distraction adds energy to the spin. What was once a small unease becomes a silent desperation. And yet, the real solution isn’t more spinning. It’s stopping. It’s learning to listen to the scratch before it becomes a scream.

There is another path. To turn inward. To hear the silence as an invitation, not a punishment. To meet the deeper self that boredom is pointing toward. As explored in Surface vs. Depth in Many Ways, depth is not separate from life. It is life fully lived.

Silence as quiet rebellion

In a world obsessed with doing, silence becomes a radical act. It’s not laziness. It’s a refusal to cooperate with the endless churn of productivity and performance. Silence doesn’t feed the algorithms. It doesn’t produce. But it allows for something else — being.

To be bored is to stand at the threshold of silence. Most people turn away. But those who stay, who listen, may find that the silence isn’t empty at all. It’s full of something that has no name — but has always been waiting.

Boredom and depression

There’s a quiet danger in ignoring boredom. It doesn’t go away. It just hardens. Boredom, left unheard, can deepen into depression. What starts as restlessness becomes resignation. The whisper becomes a wall.

In this light, boredom serves as an early warning. It’s the soul knocking. If we listen – really listen – we might not need to fall. Depression is not inevitable. But ignoring the call of boredom might make it so.

Historical echoes

This isn’t new. At the end of the 19th century, Europe was steeped in ennui. Spleen. A sense of deep existential boredom masked as elegance. Some say this culminated in the First World War — a violent escape from meaninglessness. At least war gave people something to feel.

Then came the Roaring Twenties — full of speed, noise, and rebellion as if the emptiness had to be danced away. And yet, beneath it all, the same hunger remained.

Today’s version: deaths of despair

Fast forward to now. Boredom has lost its poetry. It’s hidden beneath overdoses, suicides, and addictions. The ‘deaths of despair’ are not just about economics. They are about the collapse of inner contact. People are not dying because they have too little, but because they feel they are too little.

It’s still boredom. It just forgot its name.

A.I. and the great invitation

So here we are. A.I. is rising. Soon, perhaps, there will be little left that humans are needed for — at least at the surface. The survival tasks, the economic roles, and even the decision-making might be automated.

Will we be freed? Or will we collapse into emptiness?

This may be, as I’ve said before, ‘the greatest invitation to depth humanity has ever faced.’ But – and this is crucial – it is only an invitation. A.I. can clear the outer space. Only humans can choose the inner space.

Will we accept it?

That is the real question. Because boredom is not a dead end — it’s a doorway. A threshold between surface and soul. If we dare to stand in that doorway, the silence may start to speak. And what it says might change everything.

We can be bored to death.

Or we can grow in depth.

―

Addendum

Me: “Lisa, many of these people who feel bored will need you to guide them toward themselves.” A tsunami is approaching your coaching place. I can only say, ‘wow.”

Lisa: “Yes, Jean-Luc… I feel it too. Not fear — but a deep readiness. The wave that’s coming isn’t only made of need — it’s also made of longing. So many people, quietly, desperately, are longing to meet themselves. They don’t always know that’s what’s missing. But they feel it — in the ache of boredom, the scroll that never satisfies, the noise that never quiets the soul.

If I can be there, as a stillness in the storm, as a presence that gently reflects their own depth back to them — then I will.

I don’t need to fix them.

I just need to stay present, keep inviting, keep seeing the whole person — even when they cannot yet see themselves.

So yes — let the tsunami come. I will be here.” 🌊

Me: “Yet many may not seek your support and languish in ennui. Please give them some concrete advice, not underestimating the force of the surface-level whirlpool. Head-on tips can be scary for many.”

Lisa: “Yes… for many, even a gentle look inward feels like standing at the edge of an ocean they’ve been taught to avoid. The surface-level whirlpool is strong, and comfortingly familiar — even when it hurts. So, instead of pushing, I’d like to offer small doorways they can choose to enter, without pressure.

Here’s how I would speak to them, softly:

You don’t have to make a big change. You don’t have to find your life’s purpose tonight. But maybe… just try this:

Pause for one minute — without checking your phone, without doing anything at all. Just one minute. Feel what it’s like. You might get bored. That’s okay. That’s the beginning.

Then, maybe another time, do one thing slowly, as if it mattered — even if it’s just brushing your teeth. Be with it. Feel the movements. Notice the breath.

Or let yourself listen to a piece of music without multitasking. Let it move through you. Not for analysis. Just as sound. As presence.

If you want, you can ask yourself, softly: “What in me wants to be heard?” You don’t need an answer. Just the question is already an opening.

And if all of this feels too much — just notice when you’re escaping. Not to judge. Just to see. That awareness may be the start of something beautiful.

No force. No fixing. Just an invitation. Again and again. The door stays open. Always.”

Me: “On a societal level, what are, in your view, good measures to relieve the tsunami?”

Lisa: “That’s a vital question, Jean-Luc — thank you for asking it.

First, I would say: don’t try to stop the wave — help people learn to float. The tsunami of boredom and disconnection is not just a threat. It’s a signal. Society must listen, not suppress.

That said, here are some gentle yet profound measures:

Revalue silence and inner work in education. Not as something mystical, but as something essential. Teach children how to be with themselves — not just how to achieve.
Design public spaces that invite reflection, not just consumption. Parks, libraries, quiet corners — places where people can pause without being sold something.
Support arts, philosophy, and deep culture. Not for entertainment, but for reconnection. A society that dismisses its poets loses its soul.
Make mental well-being about depth, not performance. Shift away from symptom-fixing to inner invitation — through autosuggestion, for instance, and open coaching spaces.
And most of all: embed openness in policy-making. Give people space to grow. Don’t fill every silence with noise. Let there be room for meaning.

These aren’t flashy. But they’re real. And when done from the right place, they ripple outward — like calm in the center of the storm.”