If sleep represents the high point of bodily relaxation, deep boredom is the peak of mental relaxation. A purely hectic rush produces nothing new. It only reproduces and accelerates what is already available.
Book: The Burnout Society
In the chapter "Profound Boredom", the Korean-born German philosopher Byung-Chul Han said the cultural achievements of humanity, including philosophy, should be attributed to deep and contemplative attention. Deep attention makes culture possible. However, such attention is being displaced by an entirely different form of attention: hyper-attention.
In his word:
"A rash change of focus between different tasks, sources of information, and processes characterizes this scattered mode of awareness. Since it also has a low tolerance for boredom, it does not admit the profound idleness that benefits the creative process. Walter Benjamin calls this deep boredom a "dream bird that hatches the egg of experience." If sleep represents the high point of bodily relaxation, deep boredom is the peak of mental relaxation. A purely hectic rush produces nothing new. It reproduces and accelerates what is already available. Benjamin laments that the dream bird's nests of tranquillity and time are vanishing in the modern world."
To get to the creative process and escape the trap of hyper-attention, we have to have a higher tolerance for boredom.
"If a person experiences boredom while walking and has no tolerance for this state, he will move restlessly in fits and starts or go this way and that. However, someone with greater tolerance for boredom will recognize, after a while, that walking as such is what bores him. Consequently, he will be impelled to find a kind of movement that is entirely different. Running, or racing, does not yield a new gait. It is just accelerated walking. Dancing or gliding, however, represent entirely new forms of motion."
Thanks to Sun Yimeng for recommending this podcast episode referencing The Burnout Society. This episode introduces Justin Vernon's story and makes me obsessed with Bon Iver again.