How to Disappear: How Understimulation Heightens Creativity
Anett Martin Sosa
Movie still from ‘Fear of Fear’ (1975).
Boredom has been my enemy for as long as I can remember. Oftentimes, I find myself picking up my phone at red lights, to avoid being bored for even the shortest amount of time—the two minute red light between destinations. Whenever boredom creeps around the corners of my mind, I make quick work to fight it—doomscroll, read, watch, rinse, and repeat. To be trapped within the padded room of boredom feels like choking on memories of freedom. How can boredom, something so necessary be so detrimental? Another question to note: is boredom necessary? Specifically, when regarding the creative process. Must you be bored to create? Living in such an oversaturated state of media consumption and production, it’s honestly a task to become bored—it is extremely difficult to truly disconnect and allow yourself to be alone with your own thoughts.
Mathilde Warnier by Leo Berne Photography
I often find myself digitally drowning in cyberspace – force feeding myself short-form media and pointless commentary on A-lister gossip. Grasping at straws, I began searching YouTube: “How to be bored,” “No phone daily vlog,” and simply just “Bored.” I came to find that many creatives had the same brick-wall-question that I did: was digital overstimulation killing creativity?
As a true video essay rat—long form videos of people detailing their experiences, niche interests, and book reviews lure me in fairly easily—being said, I devoured videos upon videos of people countering the constant overstimulation of 21st century media. Many creators, like @findingothers, @diggingthegreats, and @mindful on YouTube recounted their experiences trying to avoid over stimulating—making room for natural creativity to course through their minds. In describing their no-stimuli escapades, these creators found themselves in similar boats—they all discovered that the less they consumed, the more productive, creative, and happy they felt.
Movie still from ‘Swimming Pool’ (2003).
I spend a lot of time alone and I often try to practice disconnecting: removing myself from the outside world as much as I can. My creative process is intensely cyclical. Ranging from creative drought to flood, it is a challenge to keep myself in a consistent state of creation. By minimizing the amount of time I spend consuming virtual media, I maximize the number of thoughts and ideas that come from a world before being given a never ending feed. . In a digital age, where constant overstimulation is the norm, where do we make space for boredom? How do we stay bored?
In my stay-bored journey, I’ve resorted to eliminating (or trying to) all unnecessary digital platforms and picking physical alternatives, like calendars, a journal, and books. By doing this, I am allotting myself time to sit in silence (no music, no background video, nothing) and just think. I still fall victim to the doom-scrolling, bed-rotting promoted by media overconsumption, and I see how it affects my creation process but simply acknowledging the pattern has allowed me…
The truth is, it’s hard to disappear, but avoiding boredom is to neglect the subconscious, and the subconscious is creativity.
Strike Out,
Anett Martin Sosa
Editor: Bruno Montenegro
Anett Martin Sosa is a Cuban-American writer. She writes short-stories, poems, essays, and reviews on fashion, art, culture, the macabre and the human experience. Her hobbies include penning her Substack newsletter, wherein she discusses her monthly ins and outs, favorite books, and anything else. She is influenced deeply by many different people and things, including David Lynch, unicorns, Martin Scorsece, Eve Babitz, and cowboys. She is a student at Florida International University, and is pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Writing and Rhetoric– she plans to further her education by pursuing a Master’s degree in Copywriting.
