Boredom, source of creativity? | The Press

Is it true that you have to tame boredom to be creative? That it is in the most unsuspected moments that the best ideas are born? How many Archimedes are there really in the room? The question was posed to the main stakeholders. Not boring reflections in their creative company, in three stages.

Creative boredom: accepting the void to fill it

Hugo Bélanger, playwright, author and director

“Boredom is creating availability. Boredom is stopping to think: I let things happen. »

It’s not us who say it, but the playwright, author and director Hugo Bélanger, who knows a lot about the subject. The question of creativity and its relationship to boredom is at the heart of all his projects, whether we think of his Dreamer in his bathpresented these days at the TNM, or at Alice from the other side, at the Theater House. He’s been thinking about it for years too.

Clarification: obviously, no, new ideas do not fall from the sky (except apples, perhaps, in the case of Newton!). Nevertheless: “you have to let yourself be surprised! “, maintains the one who spent hours, small, inventing stories, alone in his room.

Met in a café in his neighborhood, the day after his premiere at the TNM, the director, who is not too bored these days, nevertheless generously confides in this art of doing nothing, to let ideas germinate. . Not easy, in our current world, super-efficient, it should be, where the stimulations come from everywhere.

Solution ? “You have to get ready. […] You have to put some space in your head. […] Accept the void. […] To fill it. »

To do this, very concretely, Hugo Bélanger got into the habit of taking the train. It was between Montreal and New York that he found inspiration for his Dreamer, in 2017. “It’s 11 hours of time! Round trip, that’s 22 hours! […] It’s like a mobile office. You do nothing, there is a hypnotic side, the decor changes and you have no choice! Of course there is WiFi, so it’s dangerous, he says. But otherwise it’s like a mobile prison. […] It inspires me deeply. »

But is it really boredom or rather an escape, dare we? It’s giving yourself time to ask yourself questions, he replies. “When I go to a chalet alone for a week, for example, I take walks, I have no choice, and what do you do when you walk? You talk to yourself. »

Times when connections are made and a meaning emerges, sometimes. “Creativity is a muscle, you have to put yourself in a state of availability! The obstacle is your ally. It is in the obstacle that you find solutions. Out of your comfort, may you find solutions! […] Yes, empty time can be scary, but it’s also rich. It forces you to question yourself…” And to find answers. Or not ! Because no, good ideas do not necessarily germinate all the time. “And that too, you have to accept…”

Sterile boredom: when boredom makes you amorphous

Sara A. Tremblay, visual artist

“Me, when I’m bored, I fall amorphous. It’s not necessarily creative…”

When asked the question, Sara A. Tremblay, visual artist in the running for the current art prize of the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec (awarded later in the fall), does not hesitate for a second. Source of creativity, boredom? ” No ! “, she decides. Quite the opposite, in fact. And she knows it: “That’s probably why I go to extremes to be creative. I overload myself! »

An example ? In 2017, the artist crossed on foot the 650 km that separate Matapédia from Forillon National Park, to document this Appalachian trail, as part of the Rencontres internationales de la photographie en Gaspésie. The adventure lasted six months. “It was a bit extreme,” she concedes. But also ridiculously creative. “Me, what bothers me is the loneliness. Is boredom and being bored the same? »

This walk, it should be specified, she did it with her boyfriend at the time, and if certain passages were undoubtedly more “boring”, “photographically speaking”, she did not have much time to s bored, no. “It may seem long, but your body is so activated!” »

“For me, boredom is pejorative,” she continues. At the same time, we cannot always have drive… »

She, what turns her on, is rather the overload, therefore. But also urgency. When she feels stuck in time, for example. It is exactly in such a context that she produced her video You have to work hard to rest. Because if some people have to be bored to create, they have to work to rest! “I had 20 minutes between the end of my day and a swimming lesson, it was the end of the day, the weather was nice, I had to take advantage of what was happening. Here she has “squeezed” a photo shoot of disparate objects, plants, flowers, etc., in her yard, all against the backdrop of a splendid sunset. “It happened because it was squeezed between two cases. If I had had all day, it wouldn’t have happened. It’s impulsive, she says. And that is hyperactivity at its best…”

Paradoxically, she also knows, “we never take the time to stop! Can we take a break ? “, she ignites. A little, but not too long, on the other hand…

Imposed boredom: when boredom is the driving force and the subject of creation

Isabelle Dumais, author and poet

Isabelle Dumais is “forced” into boredom. Literally. And she decided to take her part: it is also more or less the subject of everything she writes.

The author and poet indeed suffers from an unknown disease: myalgic encephalomyelitis (also known as chronic fatigue syndrome). Diagnosed a few years ago, she must spend most of her time in bed. “It’s a bit ironic,” she said. Since 2018, I have been forced to be bored […] and I’m into ambivalent boredom writing and exploration projects all the time. »

The one to whom we owe a (premonitory?) collection of poetry in 2012 on the subject (just boredompublished by Noroît) indeed dares a “transgressive” reflection on the subject.

Because she knows it all too well: “Boredom is an experience that isn’t happy, it’s flat, it’s something sad, dreary, a negative experience,” she says. My way of revolting is to try to reverse it and find a positive side. Not smugly, of course. But rather creatively.

She explains herself, at length, because obviously she had time to think about it. “When we are forced into this long time when nothing happens,” she says, “we feel prevented from living intensely as we would like, we have the impression of underexisting. […] There is a feeling of emptiness, a sense of wasting one’s life. An unbearable je-ne-sais-quoi.

That being said, she continues, we can also conceive of boredom differently. “Being bored is chewing time,” she says, quoting the philosopher Emil Cioran here. “We can have fun over time, extrapolates the author, seeing it as a break that will be beneficial. […] For the poet or the creator, it becomes an opportunity. We become like a child again, in the back seat of the car, looking out the window, bored, doing useless things like a kid, we allow ourselves to daydream. »

Would she have been a poet without this imposed boredom? ” It’s hard to say. Is it the chicken or the egg? Is it because I have a poet’s soul that I’m bored? Do I have a contemplative nature? Life is very ironic. Still, she concludes. “If we collectively agreed to be bored, perhaps we would have more poetic calm in the world…” To ponder (in a moment of boredom!).