1There was a time, not so long ago, when waiting for a bus meant simply waiting, and nothing more.
2These days, the slightest lull sends us reaching for our phones, as though an unoccupied minute were a personal failure.
3We have engineered boredom out of our lives so thoroughly that many of us no longer remember what it feels like.
4Yet psychologists argue that boredom is not an enemy to be defeated but a doorway the mind walks through on its own.
5It is in those idle, unstimulated moments that the brain begins to wander, stitching together ideas it could not connect while focused.
6Some of the most inventive people in history guarded their empty hours jealously, taking long walks with no destination and no podcast.
7What we call distraction is often just a reluctance to sit alone with our own thoughts, which can be uncomfortable company.
8Children, who once turned cardboard boxes into entire universes, are now rarely granted the tedium that forces such invention.
9Reclaiming boredom does not require a digital detox retreat or a dramatic renunciation of technology.
10It might be as modest as leaving your phone in another room, or watching the world pass by the train window.
11Only when we stop filling every gap will we discover what has been trying to surface in the silence all along.