“The chief product of an automated society is a widespread and deepening sense of boredom.” – C. Northcote Parkinson, Born Jun. 30, 1909.
We are drowning in a sea of data. More new data is created and recorded now every day than in centuries of history prior to the modern era.
Information bombards us. Messages saturate us. But the universal pattern which always emerges is one of sameness. Blandness. Conformity. Homogeneity.
Your brain has a vested biological imperative to be bored with things it is familiar with. Familiar things are safe. Boredom allows you to ignore and forget the safe things, and save precious brainpower for exciting, thrilling, titillating, even dangerous things.
So if you want to get attention and punch a hole in the pattern – if you want your signal to break through the noise – then you must do this one thing…
For Odin, Zeus, Osiris, Buddha, Christ, and Abraham Lincoln's sake…
Don't be fucking BORING.
Because even the shittiest person churning out intellectual and visual equivalents of teacups full of farts can manage to be boring. All social media has a 99.99% chance of being fucking boooooooring.
How do you counteract that? How do you not be boring?
Step one. Like Harvey Danger said, if you're bored, then you're boring. Don't be bored with your topic. Be in love with it. Be in hate with it. Be something. Care. It comes through.
Your emotion will infect the material you produce, and transmit to the consumer. So make sure you embody the emotional state you want your audience to have.
Step two. Be somebody. Not just a talking head cipher that people don't know beyond a byline and an avatar. Share your self. Your life outside of the work.
Make that life part of the content within which you deliver the work. That makes even the most boring information into a HUMAN STORY.
Step three. Do cool shit. Do shit other people can't or won't or didn't think to do. Do it and record it and share it. Share the plans and the results and the outcomes and failures and successes.
There are probably lots of other steps. But these three are a really big part. I hope I embody them myself. I hope I'm not boring.
People can get boring anywhere and everywhere. Boring is worth nothing. Boring has no value. Boring as a container will make even the most amazing piece of information like a diamond buried deep in an old dried turd.
No one will look twice. They may even look away.
Don't be a turd. Don't be a fart. Don't be boring.
Ok?
Colin, I always find your daily devotionals interesting and enlightening. The points you make are gold and anyone who doesn't appreciate them is really missing out. Thank you for all the
insights you provide.
I think you are amazing and putting things into the right perspective for us simpletons to appreciate. Some of us would like to achieve more and have spent a lot of time chasing shadows when we should be writing. You are very much appreciated for the guidance you are so kindly giving here. Thank you
Turds and farts in stories are, inherently, not boring for sure, no?
Problem is they don't always evoke the same universal response.
As always, your insights are golden and much appreciated.
Folks not on your email list are missing out on some really useful "extras."