Which is worse Boredom or Sadness?

Benj96

Sometimes sad things can be dramatic. And although they're far from positive, one could find resolve in that fact - in that they're certainly not boring/uneventful at least. They can also be a source of motivation, purpose or a push someone needs to improve things (post traumatic growth).

Boredom on the other hand, is not much motivation for anything at all. It's idle. Insufferably still and ineffectual. And still feels negative nonetheless, like sadness. One can be sad but still feel a point to it. Boredom just feels well, like pointlessness.

Having said that many would opt for feeling temporarily bored to feeling temporarily extremely sad. So does it depend on the severity? What is severe and chronic boredom like? Anhedonia? Is it like depression or is depression closer to chronic sadness? Is boredom a subcategory of sadness perhaps?

"I'm bored because im sad"

OR

"im sad because I'm bored".

To me both make sense. But that's a cartesian circle. How does one end the boredom or vice versa the sadness I such. cycle.

For me, my approach to most things is balance. And in this case the balance is between "doing just enough" - that is to say:

1) Not doing too little of different things (ie doing too much of the same thing ie. sitting by yourself for example) that you find it dull and repetitive, get bored, succumb to the inertia of boredom and get stuck at a demotivated standstill.

2).Not doing too much of different things (ie doing too little of repetitive/comfortable and enjoyable things) that you're constantly stressed, overworked, overstimulated and overwhelmed and thus develop procrastination = an aversion towards tasks that seem unmanangable, colossal, demanding and unending. Procrastination is the brakes that are pulled when one starts to do just a bit too much to find things enjoyable. Rest is important.

Vera Mont

For me, sadness is always caused by events and situations that are harmful to some entity I care about. And therefore all occasions for sadness are bad - sometimes very bad indeed; to be avoided if at all possible, but it's so rarely possible to avoid them.

Boredom, otoh, is entirely avoidable. I may not be motivated to do anything constructive or practical; I may even be deliberately shirking such activity (as now), but I can always find an alternative way to entertain myself. I'm never really bored; it's unnecessary. Even if I have to listen to a dull speech or or watch tennis, I can always look out the window, or make up vulgar limericks or clever retorts to long-past arguments.

RogueAI

"Against boredom even gods struggle in vain."

Vera Mont

Well, hey! That's me one-upping gods again.

Patterner

Q: Which is worse, ignorance or apathy?

A: Who knows. Who cares.

T Clark

Sadness is just sadness. Boredom is something else. We're not meant to get bored. It's a signal of something else going on. Something hidden. It's ok to just be sad, but with boredom you should pay attention.

Sadness is healthier, but boredom is more interesting.

introbert

There is really no abstract way to compare angsts, feelings or affective states. Each person's experience of them is different. In my experience sadness is not a problem for me, but boredom is. I used to read the Marxist philosopher Guy de Bord and he used the tag line 'not bored'. I understood this to be about having internal resources and not relying on external stimuli to entertain you, which obviously gives the Spectacle power. But I do get bored of my internal resources in much the same way as I have things such as running, cycling, being in relationships, socializing, and even attaining some goals. Getting bored has been a catalyst for self-destruction such as using drugs and alcohol, risky sex, and quiting work and education/ training. Sadness has not been anywhere near as impactful.

Tom Storm

↪Benj96

Interesting question. I suspect that boredom and sadness come in soft and hard forms and both are probably unendurable when experience with intensity for an extended period. I've not often been sad, but I have often been bored (the soft variety). The problem with boredom is an inability to pay attention for extended periods. My boredom often means I can't watch long-form TV or sit through a movie or finish a book. Detail is painful or puts me to sleep. Boredom feels like tedium, restlessness, weariness, and a frustrated attempt to find engagement. In its extreme form, it probably does feel like anhedonia (and even physical pain) as you suggest.

Benj96

Well, hey! That's me one-upping gods again. — Vera Mont

Haha! That's the spirit you show them hehe.

Benj96

Q: Which is worse, ignorance or apathy?

A: Who knows. Who cares. — Patterner

Haha! I love this. Very fun.

Art48

People watch sad movies but don't watch boring movies.
Apparently, sadness is more entertaining than boredom.
So maybe boredom is worse?

Benj96

↪Art48

Excellent point Art48!

I'm inclined to agree. I have been sad sometimes but it is often very clarifying and cause for self reflection or for examining circumstances. In essence quite a mentally active state of mind. Trying to put things into perspective to abate negative emotions that come from uncertainty, miscalculation or lack of understanding.

Boredom on the other hand. Well I can assure you I never used that time well. Because if I did, I would not consider it boredom. I would consider it productivity, engaging, useful.

For me boredom is worse. And personally I think boredom is closer to depression than sadness is. Because people can feel acutely and strongly upset regularly, but would not consider themselves depressed. They might consider themselves emotionally labile, dramatic, sensitive. But not depressed.

I could well imagine a chronically bored person on the other hand saying things like everything is pointless and futile. Worthless. Meaningless.

Vera Mont

People watch sad movies but don't watch boring movies.
Apparently, sadness is more entertaining than boredom.
So maybe boredom is worse? — Art48

They watch horror movies, too. So, I guess that means it's better to be eaten by a monster than have nothing to do on a Sunday afternoon. Naw, people stave off their own boredom through vicarious enjoyment of other people's suffering.

Benj96

Naw, people stave off their own boredom through vicarious enjoyment of other people's suffering — Vera Mont

Well. I'm sure this is true, no doubt.

However it's only one side. People also enjoy other peoples enjoyment. So much so that laughter and smiles can be "infectious".

Art48

For me boredom is worse. And personally I think boredom is closer to depression than sadness is. Because people can feel acutely and strongly upset regularly, but would not consider themselves depressed. They might consider themselves emotionally labile, dramatic, sensitive. But not depressed.

I could well imagine a chronically bored person on the other hand saying things like everything is pointless and futile. Worthless. Meaningless. — Benj96

Of course, clinical depression exists but I've also seen some spiritual teachers say a stage of the path to enlightenment is where the world has lost its attraction (boredom) but awareness of higher truth is not yet established.

Benj96

↪Art48

I could agree with that.
One must explore the worst extremes of the human condition in order to understand the best extreme.
There's no reward without struggle.

Vera Mont

However it's only one side. People also enjoy other peoples enjoyment. So much so that laughter and smiles can be "infectious". — Benj96

Oh, sure. They also watch romantic comedies. What I meant to compare was boredom vs. interest. Whatever happens in it, happy or sad, painful or scary, a movie is always about other people; about feelings you can sympathize with, pity, laugh at or appreciate - but they are not your feelings.
If a movie makes you sad or afraid, it's from a safe distance; if it bores you, the boredom is your own.

Vera Mont

One must explore the worst extremes of the human condition — Benj96

Have you actually done a lot of that? For far too many people in the world, that's their normal, daily condition, and there is no reward. By and large, philosophers do their exploring of human nature and human conditions from a comfortable armchair on a full stomach - yet never grow bored with their own cogitations.

Benj96

Have you actually done a lot of that? — Vera Mont

Yes. Like most people I know what depression really is because I've experienced it myself. I also know what it's like to self hate/loathe, feel shame, feel guilt.

I cannot say I've had it "worse" than anyone else. It's not nor should it be a competition. That said, i'm probably quite fortunate in fact because for me these periods were brief and infrequent. I understand that there is always a deeper rock bottom and some people are stuck struggling there or are spiralling towards it.

My point was that it is unlikely to know what's good or healthy for you without experiencing things that are bad/unhealthy.

Which I was aligning with Art48 saying spiritual clarity or enlightenment or whatever state of inner peace one is striving for it makes sense that a period of suffering is neccesary to drive you in search of that in the first place.

We know things and define things in opposition, by comparison

It's why a child will always make the same common mistakes as their parents growing up because they don't have the luxury of wisdom - something that comes from personal experience, rather then simply being told "don't do that because A, B and C. " - and experience of course not being exclusively good.

Vera Mont

I cannot say I've had it "worse" than anyone else. It's not nor should it be a competition. — Benj96

I didn't make it a competition. You raised a comparison.

One must explore the worst extremes of the human condition
in order to understand the best extreme. — Benj96

But we're not exploring African sweatshops or Turkish prisons or a girls' school in Afghanistan or Necrotizing Fasciitis ....

I've had some bad times, too, but I sure wouldn't call them anywhere near the worst, and I would not choose to explore them out of intellectual curiosity or to avoid boredom. (Epicurean, me.)

Benj96

I would not choose to explore them out of intellectual curiosity or to avoid boredom. ( — Vera Mont

Well therein lies a difference. No one need work in a sweatshop to explore what it would be like intellectually. If we had to do everything ourselves in order to validate it as good or bad or discuss it meaningfully then we would be reducing empathy, our capacity for abstraction and imagination to nothing short of "reactionary" to immediate circumstances.

I was speaking of the more nuanced psychological exploration of the human condition: not a specific humans condition (working in a sweatshop) but rather "the" human condition as it pertains to the mind - suffering and it's opposite. Everyone has experiential sources of suffering and peace and joy to draw from. They are not the same for everyone but I believe suffering as a general basic mindstate shares the same qualities regardless of where it can from.

Enlightenment I would imagine, like depression and suicidal ideation are mindstates not physical circumstances on can "try out".

We all have a sense of good and bad in reference to how it makes us feel. The qualities and definitions, the "sets" of things that are considered good verses bad are different for everyone. That's the frontier of conflict, confusion, inequality and discrimination I guess. When "what is good" for one person is "bad" for another.

Outlander

I'd imagine it depends heavily on whether you're the observer of the afflicted or the afflicted themself.

To most introverts the sheer experience of being alive is enough to circumvent boredom. Though even the holders of the most vivid of imaginations would probably get bored in a padded cell in physical restraints. From there sadness may follow. However sadness is often a reflective or passive emotion as opposed to say anguish or rage which is often active or "kinetic" so to speak.

I suppose one could say sadness is the smoldering ember of anger. Is it not?

Sadness itself is part of the human experience, though the overarching reality or set of circumstances behind the event or circumstance is what one becomes troubled by, often surpassing the superficial tapestry of sadness into the bottomless abyss that is despair.

So while the two are related, many instances of either are often transient, despite our fervent belief otherwise.

I could look at the world as a benevolent person whose duty is to prevent harm despite having limited resources and influence to do, just about anything worthwhile or everlasting.. Looking in the right places I could easily become sad. I could look at the world as a self-centered individual whose only concern is me, myself, and I and having all basic and reasonable needs and desires met, become quite bored. Perhaps even more so as a theist who believes anything and everything in this life is basically "part of a ride" that is essentially to be avoided. So it can go both ways.

Vera Mont

No one need work in a sweatshop to explore what it would be like intellectually. — Benj96

Exactly! You can work out what's good in life without "exploring" what's bad.

"the" human condition as it pertains to the mind - suffering and it's opposite. — Benj96

The theoretical one. Not actual suffering, but some kind of philosophical angst. Didn't we all do that exercise between 16 and 20 years of age? It tends to come with mild substance abuse and bad poetry. But the outcome is generally positive - a thinking-intuitive adult.

The qualities and definitions, the "sets" of things that are considered good verses bad are different for everyone. — Benj96

There, I must disagree. I think the differences, not only from person to person, but from species to species, are relatively minor. I think in the broad strokes, all biological entities choose the same categories of things to seek and things to avoid.

I suppose one could say sadness is the smoldering ember of anger. Is it not? — Outlander

In my experience, it's most commonly a response to loss.

Sadness itself is part of the human experience, though the overarching reality or set of circumstances behind the event or circumstance is what one becomes troubled by, often surpassing the superficial tapestry of sadness into the bottomless abyss that is despair. — Outlander

I think that depends on the scope and depth of the loss - how invested one is - how much of one's effort, identity and emotional well-being depended on the entity, struggle, nation, faith, ideal, species, or planet that was lost.

180 Proof

↪Benj96

Hope is worse than either boredom or sadness.

Vera Mont

Hope is worse than either boredom or sadness — 180 Proof

Only because its expiration brings about a union of the other two: a state of weary resignation.

Benj96

Hope is worse than either boredom or sadness. — 180 Proof

How so? Can you elaborate your views here.

For one, one has little to no need or use for hope when one is fully content with how things are going.

Hope then, is for the unsatisfied - for whatever reason; those that are ambitious, aspirational, or perfectionists or those that are struggling with how things are currently - the sad, the grieving etc.

Hope is born from 1). A need and 2). Optimism

180 Proof

↪Benj96

For me, 'hope' is synonymous with wishful thinking and/or lacking courage.

Benj96

For me, 'hope' is synonymous with wishful thinking and/or lacking courage. — 180 Proof

So if I say I hope the wind blows easterly tomorrow, what is the lack of courage here? What do we say about lacking courage when we hope about things occurring that are wholly out of our personal control? I see no relevance of courage to such things.

And how does one reconcile the sentence "I hope im not a wishful thinker" which semantically and grammatically makes perfect sense and is utilitarian in every day language. But by your definition is absurdism.

180 Proof

↪Benj96

You're playing trivial word games which bore me.

Benj96

You're playong word games which bore me. — 180 Proof

Words are important. Sadly I'm not a mind reader. So they're all we have to communicate ideas to one another. I'm not trying to play word games, I'm trying to establish whether your definition stands up to reasoning. As I'm sure you have done in reverse many times in the past with me or other tpf contributors.

If you're bored don't let me stop you taking a backseat. But engaging in the discourse takes more than abrupt personal and unfounded conclusions. My "intent" is not to play word games, however your "interpretation" of the execution of my intent is that I am. I would say then that this is "miscommunication".

Manuel

I suppose that what matters here is not so much which feeling is worse - they are both bad, but instead - how long one of these feelings last.

It's fine to be sad for a while, or bored for a while, but not for too, too long, otherwise it becomes a very serious issue.

Which is worse Boredom or Sadness?

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