Are you easily bored? As a kid, did you often say "I'm bored" - and what did you want to have happen? Certainly not to be given a chore to do! You probably wanted to get involved in something new, something that your parent or friend made exciting. There might have been a laziness component - you wanted someone else to do the hard work of thinking something up. (In my childhood, before the days of computer games, my family didn't have a television. Though we had a live-in grandma who played games and read stories, I did yearn for television.)

Here's a nice long article about research into boredom. The strapline sums it up:

"Battling boredom, researchers say, means finding focus, living in the moment, and having something to live for"

Here are a couple of key points from this Scientific American article:

- Boredom is not a unified concept but may comprise several varieties, including the transient type that occurs while waiting in line and so-called existential boredom that accompanies a profound dissatisfaction with life.

- Boredom is linked to both emotional factors and personality traits. Problems with attention also play a role, and thus techniques that improve a person’s ability to focus may diminish boredom.

Susan Sontag has another perspective: "Boredom is just the reverse side of fascination: both depend on being outside rather than inside a situation, and one leads to the other."

People nearing retirement might feel bored at work because they're trying to distance themselves from something that they've been very involved in. Or, it might be because they aren't given interesting, longer-term projects any more. Perhaps both these things make their attention wander, and they lose focus?

This "boredom box" was made in a course where we had to choose an emotion and illustrate it.

Monochrome monotony; pointlessness.

In terms of art, how is boredom related to being blocked ... which comes first?