Why we should embrace boredom

Where does inspiration come from? Art galleries, multiplex cinemas, accident and emergency departments. There are dozens of places you can go to stir the senses, invigorate the brain and bask in sizzling stimulation.

But what if you go the other way? What if you batten down the hatches, turn off the lights and bathe your grey matter in aching, mind-numbing boredom?

I have a theory. And it might bore the socks off you. True invention comes from utter boredom. Where there was darkness, man created light. Where there was raw meat, man created the burger. Dozing under apple trees gave us theories of gravity. Grey suburban sprawl gave us glam rock. The list goes on. And on. And on. Boredom has been part of our condition from the word go and it isn’t going anywhere soon.

So what if we turn the tedious on its head and use it to our advantage? It’s not always possible for us to crawl into a cave and embrace boredom in it’s purest form. So we have to take another tack. By locating the drab in the everyday, by spotting the ‘borepoint’ on behalf of our brands, we can start to entertain, surprise and delight the melancholic masses. Take something hellishly dull like jogging, a necessary boredom because we don’t chase mammoths or villagers anymore. Thankfully Nike stepped in, created Nike+, stopped jogging being boring and turned it into a motivational game. Genius.

We need to pinpoint the borepoint and insert our brand into it. But, of course, be relevant and pertinent. Brands need to locate and subvert boredom. We need to be driven by the idea of driving out boring from everyday life. Seek out those everyday moments of nothing – the metro, the coffee queue, the toilet. And inspire and entertain. Boring is inspirational. Simon Attwater is executive creative director at DigitasLBi