“Have you ever sat in a railway station and watched people killing time? Do they not sit a little like crestfallen angels?”
- Henry Miller, Black Spring
Like many people here, I came to this site after deleting my social media profiles. One day, I had enough of the notifications, sensationalistic news posts, and all of the other mental intrusions with which we pay for our profiles. Ditto for dating apps, which I came to see as ecosystems fueled by people wearing each other down. The outcome wasn’t deeper connections, but increased frustration and jadedness and, in turn, a continued clientèle for these apps. Antisocial media is corny to use nowadays, but, for all intents and purposes, that’s the outcome.
Pretty soon, I felt the fear of missing out. Was I losing out on meeting people? What about what so-and-so was doing? I found myself feeling like I had time on my hands. I have a demanding job and plenty of side projects, but somehow the time I was carving away to doomscroll still felt like a loss to me.
I took the time I gained to get on top of my stuff. I’ve started finding moments of peace in running. My latest and most meaningful one was before my drawing class. I was at the office all day and didn’t realize how warm it was. I was 30 minutes early and I sat at a cafe in front of the art school. I spent 30 minutes reading Henry Miller while sipping on an espresso. Maybe boredom is not something we should take for granted. Maybe those moments of boredom are where we are closest to being divine.
