1. Why Can’t Humans Endure Boredom?
Bros, what was the most boring book you’ve read lately? For me, it was a recent book on evolutionary psychology. The logic—“Prehistoric hunting instincts determine modern interior design”—kept repeating on loop until fatigue set in. I thought, ‘Is this really all you have?’
Then I hit the last sentence:
“Humans cannot endure boredom. Design a space that is not boring.”
I laughed out loud. ‘This book itself is boring. You need to redesign from page one.’
At that moment, a thought struck me. Maybe boredom isn’t just about time dragging on. Maybe it’s the feeling of not living inside the world right now. This series starts from that point.
We will understand boredom not as a simple emotion, but as a disconnection between humans and the world.
This discussion is for those whose daily lives feel flat, and for creators who want to build content that never bores.
2. The Three Dimensions of Boredom: World – Narrative – Body
Boredom is not a single emotion. It is a complex state formed by three overlapping layers: Disconnection from the World, Stagnation of Narrative, and Numbness of the Body.
In Part 1, we will discuss the first layer: Accessibility to the World.
(0) The Limits of Existing Philosophy: Ontological Boredom
If you research philosophers who dealt with boredom (Ennui), they mostly approach it from an ontological level.
- Martin Heidegger: “Boredom is not just time dragging, but a state where the meaning and possibility of existence are invisible.“
- Søren Kierkegaard: “Boredom is a form of ontological crisis. It arises when one chooses nothing despite being able to choose, or remains sensorially unsatisfied.”
I can empathize with the analysis that boredom is an ontological crisis where humans fail to find meaning. However, it feels too abstract. They say “The world is boring,” but the essence of the problem is “I perceive the world as boring.”
The issue isn’t the world itself, but my perception of it. Yet, they fail to provide a clear structure on how that perception occurs. I want to shift the perspective here. Boredom is not a problem of existence, but a phenomenon caused by a Failure of Perception.
In other words, we are thrown into the world, but we feel bored when we fail to “Log In” (Connect) to it.
(1) Accessibility to the World
[Definition] Boredom is the feeling of “Not Living the World.”
Phenomenologists always say humans are beings “thrown” into the world. This means we are thrown into conditions we didn’t choose—Korea, 2025, Male, Knee Pain. Like threads in a sweater, humans are woven into a dense context, yet we live by assigning meaning to it.
But what if you can’t assign meaning?
Your body is thrown into the world, but that world becomes meaningless and boring to you.
Now you understand why phenomenologists saw boredom as an existential crisis, and why commercial productions and creators strive to eliminate it.
[Core Question] Why Does That World Feel Boring?
To give you the conclusion first: We are thrown into the world, but if we cannot Connect, we feel bored.
“Connection” means a state where my senses and language react to the world’s Code, and interaction occurs. Here, Code refers to the consistent context and system of meaning that maintains the routine of that life-world. It is formed by law, culture, customs, and history.
A world you cannot connect to because the codes don’t match feels like a Muted Theme Park, even if your body is physically there. That is when humans experience boredom.
[Case] Night Train to Lisbon – An Inaccessible World
Recently, while reading Night Train to Lisbon by Pascal Mercier, I felt bored.
👉 The Plot: Gregorius is a professor teaching classical philology in Switzerland. In his repetitive daily life, he saves a Portuguese woman from suicide. When she touches his head, he feels the power of life and awakens. He devours a Portuguese book she left behind and becomes curious about the author, Amadeu de Prado. He drops everything and leaves for Lisbon. There, he tracks the life of the doctor Amadeu, reconstructing scattered fragments of memory. In the process, he learns Portuguese and vows to live his own life.
👉 Why Was It Boring?
Respected job, stable life, intellectual anguish. For a middle-class reader living in this world, the story of impulsive escape after mental awakening might be easily accessible.
👉 But: For me—rolling in kitchen dust, raging at loan balance notifications, living an unstable life where I can’t predict tomorrow’s customers—Gregorius’s world is Inaccessible.
Nevertheless, I forced myself to read it because I paid $15, seduced by the ad that it was the best-selling novel in Germany. It was excruciatingly boring. On the other hand, Kitchen Confidential or Waiter Rant, worlds I can easily access, were incredibly fun.
👉 [Implication] Being Thrown Does Not Mean Being Connected
What this experience implies is: You can throw yourself into a world, but that doesn’t guarantee immediate accessibility. To subjectively perceive phenomena through meaning and make them conditions of existence, you must be able to Connect.
Example: A Foreigner Who Can’t Speak Korean
Imagine you are suddenly forced to work in Korea without knowing a word of Korean. Your body is thrown into the life-world called Korea. But unless Koreans speak English to you, you cannot connect to the life-world they have built over centuries. You might interpret the Korean world and assign meaning based on an American worldview and language. This Solipsistic Worldview might be fun at first. Even if isolated, it’s a process of creating meaning yourself.
But: As time passes, if Koreans don’t react to your worldview or react differently than expected, you will experience growing confusion. When failures to connect to the Korean life-world accumulate like this, there are only two choices:
- Push your solipsistic worldview and become a Revolutionary who overturns the Korean world.
- Learn the language, understand the history and culture, and Melt into the local life.
[Summary] Mismatched Codes Mean No Connection
Every world has Codes—law, history, culture, preconditions—that make it a consistent context. Even if a human is physically thrown into a world, accessibility is not guaranteed. Even if you project your existing worldview to assign meaning to a disconnected world, if that world doesn’t respond (it might be fun at first), you eventually feel bored.
I tried to connect to Gregorius’s world because I invested $15.
But:
- The scene where he feels the resurrection of life from a woman touching his head → It overlapped with Christian rituals, and I scoffed.
- Doctor Amadeu’s existential anguish (suffering criticism for treating a dictator) → It felt weak and overly delicate.
Unlike my worldview, which scoffs and feels pathetic, the novel’s world unfolds according to its own logic. Because I couldn’t connect to it, it was Boring.
(2) A World Without the Rhythm of Action Verbs
I recently watched Mr. Robot. It’s an award-winning show, but personally? It was boring until the bitter end. The boredom of Mr. Robot did not come from its subject or its pace, but from its lack of verbal rhythm—a world where verbs stopped moving, and only nouns remained.
[The Plot]
Mr. Robot follows Elliot Alderson, a genius cybersecurity engineer suffering from severe social anxiety and Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID). Fighting childhood trauma, he creates an alter ego in the form of his dead father (Mr. Robot). This internal schism becomes the engine driving an external hacking war. Elliot joins the anonymous hacker group fsociety to execute the “Five/Nine” hack—
erasing all debt records of E Corp, the conglomerate controlling the global financial system.
But behind this revolutionary attempt, he realizes there is an omnipotent secret organization, the Dark Army, led by Whiterose. Elliot’s struggle deepens into a war against a massive structural evil built on capital and technology.
[Why Was It Boring?] Connection Was Possible
It wasn’t because I couldn’t connect to the world of Mr. Robot.
- I’ve seen V for Vendetta and The Matrix, which share similar contexts.
- I understood the real-world impact of the WikiLeaks scandal.
- I’ve watched plenty of schizophrenia narratives like A Beautiful Mind or Shutter Island.
This was different from the boredom I felt with Night Train to Lisbon. What dimension was this?
[Narrative is Expressed through Action Verbs]
First, a narrative is what meaningfully connects random changes over time. And we express narrative through “Action Verbs.”
Example: Atoms and Electrons
Middle school science teaches: “Electrons orbit around the atom.” Notice that the atom and electron exist separately, but they become a narrative only through the verb “Orbit.” Actually, nobody knows if the electron is orbiting or binding the atom. It doesn’t matter. The point is that inserting an action verb makes it understandable as a consistent flow.
Of course, stative verbs (have, own, love, like) describing emotions or thoughts enrich meaning at a specific point and reduce boredom, but they are irrelevant to the progression of the narrative.
In fact, relying too much on stative verbs can make time feel frozen, leading to boredom.
Why? Expressions like “orbit” or “bind” are based on physical actions I can control.
When describing changes in the external world (nouns) over time, you must insert verbs to understand the causal flow. If a kid doesn’t understand “electrons orbit the atom,” tell them to run randomly around the teacher. They get it instantly. Similarly, a spoon and rice exist independently as nouns, but say “Eat rice with a spoon,” and they connect into a narrative.
In short, humans understand the flow of the world centering on their own physical actions.
Therefore, narrative is intrinsically composed of Action Verbs.
Verbs are not just grammar; they are the muscles of perception.
[The Importance of Rhythm] Repetition is Boring
However, composing a narrative with just the same action is boring.
Instead of showing someone holding an apple for 10 seconds:
- Grab the apple,
- Throw it at the ceiling,
- Spin it on a finger. Constructing it with this rhythm kills boredom.
Why?
Because the apple is:
- Light enough to throw,
- Round enough to spin. New perceptions are opened by various “Actions,” allowing us to experience it in multiple dimensions. Therefore, even a narrative of love and separation won’t resonate unless you insert “Verbs” like pounding or aching and a “Rhythm of Perceptual Shift.”
This is what Stephen King meant in On Writing:
- Don’t plaster sentences with adverbs like “lusciously” or “prettily.”
- Don’t use the passive voice; be assertive with the active voice.
[The Failure of Mr. Robot 1] Dispersed Rhythm, Disconnected Body
The reason I found Mr. Robot boring is that the “Rhythm of Action Verbs” in the narrative is dispersed.
Problem: Over 30 Key Supporting Characters
Mr. Robot has too many significant supporting characters—nearly 30.
Result:
- The protagonist’s action disappears.
- The viewpoint scatters.
- It becomes difficult for viewers to understand the narrative consistently.
Compared to the main current—Elliot fighting Whiterose—the episodes of the supporting cast are too fragmented. Hacking, shooting, talking—all scenes must be thoroughly centered on the protagonist so viewers can reproduce the context and follow along. We construct the narrative by watching the protagonist’s actions.
Contrast Case: The Bourne Series
The Bourne Identity is a perfect example.
- The camera describes Jason Bourne’s movements slowly and in detail.
- Supporting characters are handled quickly and blurred out.
- No psychoanalytic dialogue about self-identity, no verbose narration.
- Instead, Bourne’s identity crisis is described through actions: screaming, tearing his hair out, frantically searching through documents.
We understand Bourne’s narrative by projecting it onto our own bodies.
We experience sensory immersion synchronized with “Bourne’s Rhythm.”
But in Mr. Robot, Elliot:
- Is in a state of split personality.
- Engage in verbose narration doubting himself via stream of consciousness.
- Meanwhile, the rhythm of verbs moving the entire narrative is scattered among 30 supporting characters. Consequently, viewers feel that Elliot’s narrative is frozen. For those trying to immerse themselves in the protagonist, it is inevitably boring.
[The Failure of Mr. Robot 2] Predictable Action Kills Rhythm
Another problem with Mr. Robot is the excess of clichés.
- Split-personality genius (Elliot)
- Birth secrets and childhood trauma (Angela)
- Shadow government (Whiterose)
- Bisexual rebel (Darlene)
- Workaholic investigator (Dominique)
Characters we’ve seen somewhere before. By the middle of Season 2, you can identify every inserted cliché and predict the flow. A narrative woven with predicted actions does not feel “rhythmic,” so perception does not shift, and it becomes boring.
Contrast Case: Memento, The Usual Suspects, Saw 1
- You cannot predict where the narrative is going even by watching the protagonists’ lines and actions.
- The middle might be a bit boring. But even that is a device intended for the thrilling rhythmic twist at the end.
- When the chain of actions unfolded by the characters flips unpredictably, viewers get goosebumps and feel the story is Alive.
You rewind the movie to find hints of the ending’s foreshadowing, even searching online.
[Summary] Narrative is Composed of Actions
Verbs are the language of the body. We cannot construct the world’s narrative with nouns.
We understand how things change over time through “Action Verbs.”
Because to understand the changes of fragmented objects (nouns) as meaningful, my physical actions—seeing, hearing, speaking, touching—must intervene.
This inherits the philosophy of Merleau-Ponty, who placed the “Body” rather than the brain or consciousness at the center of understanding the world.
Therefore, changes that cannot be expressed through physical action are understood as random and meaningless. For example, even difficult and complex cooking can be understood if split and connected by action verbs:
- Slice
- Stir-fry
- Boil
- Bake
When connecting verbs, “Rhythm” is crucial. Rhythm allows us to experience the same object through various perceptions and enriches meaning.
A world without the rhythm of action verbs feels boring to us.
(3) A World Without Physical Control
Why is the treadmill a factory of boredom? This question cannot be answered simply by “Accessibility to the World” or the “Rhythm of Action Verbs.” The boredom of the treadmill stems from something more fundamental: The Loss of Physical Sovereignty.
On the treadmill, it looks like we are walking. But in reality, the world is moving us. The moment the machine takes over your muscles, you cease to be the subject moving the world. You become an object being moved by it. You become cargo.
[Contrast] Iron Is Not Boring
Resistance training is different.
- I lift.
- I hold.
- I drop. I control the body. Because I can increase the weight and reconfigure the rhythm of the action, the narrative of the workout is rewritten every set. Here, we feel the Existential Control that “I am moving my body.” That sensation is the primal rhythm that drives away boredom.
[How to Seize the Rhythm]
To make the treadmill less boring, don’t just increase the speed. Shorten the interval of control.
- The Good: Walk 4 minutes, Run 1 minute.
- I restructure the rhythm. I become the subject.
- The Bad: Speed 6 for 20 minutes, Speed 9 for 10 minutes.
- The control gap is too long. No rhythm.
- Physical authority is surrendered to the machine.
But what do most people do? They are too lazy to even press the buttons. They set it to 6 and run for 30 minutes. Having handed over their bodies to the machine, they instantly feel bored and turn on Netflix.
[The Paradox] The Better the Show, The Emptier the Run
Here is the paradox: The more fun Netflix is, the more boring the exercise becomes. As the focus of perception shifts to the screen, the sensation of the body being forcibly moved by the treadmill is maximized. We experience a separation of mind and body. I used to skip the treadmill entirely if I couldn’t find anything to watch on Netflix. To truly enjoy cardio, you must go outside. Walk or run in the wild and reclaim sovereignty over your body.
[The Solution] How to Run Without Boredom
To avoid boredom, you must control the body.
- A Connectable World: I recommend a familiar river, forest, or road in your neighborhood.
A completely new place is an unknown world; trying to connect to it drains energy, making it hard to focus on the run. - Narrative with Verb Rhythm: A long, straight bridge is boring.
Run where you see architecture. When the scenery changes, what you See, Hear, and Touch changes. The verbs change. - Physical Control: Unlike the treadmill, if you control the stride and pace yourself, you won’t be bored. However, if the action is too difficult, physical control fails, and it becomes boring.
Raise the difficulty gradually.
[Summary]
A world like the treadmill, where physical control is impossible, is perceived as boring.
Humans move there, but they do not feel alive.
[Note for Gym Owners]
I don’t know if gym owners read my blog, but this is a free business insight.
- Save the money for 10 treadmills; buy 8.
- Instead, use tape to mark a walking track on the gym floor.
- Make sure they can see outside through a window while walking the track.
- Install incline courses or acupressure stones in the middle to vary the Verb Rhythm.
Configure it this way. You save money, and your clients won’t be bored.
3. What’s Next
This essay is getting long, so let’s pause here. In the next part, we’ll review the full boredom framework, test its validity, and extract practical guidelines for content creators.
Stay tuned.
➡️ Next: The Phenomenology of Boredom: Why Most Content Feels Dead (and How to Fix It)
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