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Ennui: How to Overcome Chronic Boredom
Ennui and depression are separate phenomena
A person can suffer from ennui but not depression. Similarly, this also means that it’s possible for someone to suffer from depression but not ennui.
Depression is well defined from a clinical perspective, and is therefore a commonly used medical term, whereas ennui isn’t, and shouldn’t be viewed as such.
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Key Ideas
Ennui
Ennui is a form of chronic boredom and it usually involves tiredness, dissatisfaction, apathy and feeling that everything is uninteresting and unfulfilling.
Symptoms of Ennui
Generally, ennui makes you feel almost always bored (in general or in specific parts of your life - your job or your hobbies); you feel this boredom on a deep, existential level, in a way that is hard to change.
You may also lack enthusiasm or excitement and show no interest in how the future will look like.
Ennui and boredom
- Boredom means being in a mental state that is short-tern and caused mainly by situational and environmental factors
- Ennui relates to a mental state that is chronic and caused mainly by personality-based factors (a person's disposition).
The two terms are often used interchangeably.
Dealing with Ennui
- Think about what you truly want to do, because this can help you understand why you experience ennui.
- Talk to someone to get a better perspective regarding why you experience ennui.
- Change your routine to break away the monotony that causes you to experience ennui.
- Make an effort to interact with people.
- Remove unnecessary things that can promote your ennui and make things that you have to do feel more exciting.
- Rest and recharge.
When Ennui gets dangerous
- Ennui is associated with various dangers: it can cause people to engage in dangerous, sensation-seeking behaviors, in an effort to alleviate their boredom.
- Ennui can lead to a bad, self-perpetuating downward cycle: it causes you to go lower and lower, by leading you to a place where it feeds itself.
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The argument from dictionary
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An example of the appeal to definition
"We should ignore the theory of evolution because the dictionary says that a theory is just an opinion that you have about something you can't prove."
The person using this fallacy is basing their statement on a specific definition of the word "theory" while ignoring alternative definitions that will better capture the meaning of the term as it's used in a scientific context.
Appeal to definition: when the process becomes fallacious
Not every use of a definition is necessarily fallacious. If the definition is properly justified and is selected in a properly justified way, it is generally not fallacious. However, it is fallacious when at least one of the following conditions are true:
- There is no valid reason for using the definition.
- The definition was cherry-picked out of a range of possible definitions.
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Virtue signaling
Virtue signaling means speaking or behaving in a way that’s meant to prove a person's good moral values.
If a person affirms on social media that they fully support...
The overall negative connotation of virtue signaling
Usually, ‘virtue signaling’ has a negative meaning (even if there are a few situations where it is likely to lead to meaningful positive outcomes).
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Engaging in virtue signaling
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Someone might even engage in virtue signaling in private, by saying things that are meant to convince themselves of their own good character.
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Key Ideas
Boredom is not that simple to explain
We may tend to think of boredom as a response to monotonous activities. But boredom isn't this clearcut.
Research reveals that there's a significant variation in how much bo...
Boredom and modern society
Boredom is sometimes described as the plague of modern society.
- Back in 2016, a French worker sued his former employer for "bore-out." He won.
- Many people, especially those born between mid -1990s and late 2010s, scrolls aimlessly through apps and find nothing of interest.
- People are even diagnosing their pets with boredom.
The struggle to define boredom
Psychologists differ in their definition of boredom.
- In the 1960s and 1970s, boredom was defined as the feeling generated by a repetitive task. Researchers found that boredom increased alertness to the things happening around you (distractions).
- From 1986, the opposite was found. A study found that boredom caused less concentration.
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