Welcome to another edition of the Fred & Dan Blog! Our mission with Fred&Dan Productions and this blog has always been to make people think in ways they’ve never done before - to spark creativity and facilitate conversation in unconventional ways. A place where you can open up your email and have a bit of creativity to take with you into your day or week!  

We don’t have much news regarding the writers strike (as it hits its 123rd day!), but we did love this article from the LA Times that discusses how the AMPTP is losing what they thought was going to be an easy fight. Suck it nerds.

Today we are here to talk about boredom. 

Not our usual fare, but this was actually fun to talk about and research. And we did actually do some research on this and discovered that there are “Boring Conferences” around the world where people get together and talk about boring things. Amazing.

Despite popular opinion, boredom is actually a good thing! When I was in the 4th or 5th grade I was absolutely distraught one weekend with boredom. Like laying on the floor in our hallway close to tears because I was so bored. My parents were unmoved and told me to entertain myself. Luckily my older sister’s best friend came over right at that moment and I recruited her to help me rearrange my room. 

It only took five minutes of wallowing on the carpet to envision how I could properly feng shui my room for optimal Harry Potter reading. 

From our research, which spanned from the Mayo Clinic to Goodreads (yes we are well read thank you), a little boredom is a universally agreed upon good thing. The Italians even have a phrase for it “il dolce far niente”— the sweetness of doing nothing. As we are both Italian, we take this very seriously. 

Albert Einstein even said, “The monotony and solitude of a quiet life stimulates the creative mind.” And that guy knew a lot of things!! 

This brings us to our creative inspirational prompt for the week: 

Take out a piece of paper, write down the last time you were bored, what was it like, how did it make you feel? Whether or not you remember the last time you were bored, take a look at your schedule and schedule some boredom time. 

Actually set an alarm and try it out for even 10 minutes. No phone, no talking, no TV, no activity. If anything, look out the window or find some nature to sit in. 

After, journal about it for 10 minutes and see what big ideas your brain came up with during your boring time. Maybe you just allowed yourself to process some thoughts, that’s amazing too! 

Check in later that day and see if you find you’re more inspired or even just calmer. Come back to this exercise anytime you need…and maybe even let us know how it went! 

Excited for you to be bored.