Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind listener Mail.
Speaker 2: My name is Joe McCormick. My regular co host Robert
Speaker 2: Lamb is not with me today, so I'm going to
Speaker 2: be recording some responses to listener mail solo, but Rob
Speaker 2: should be back with me again tomorrow for our core episode.
Speaker 2: We read listener mail every Monday on Stuff to Blow
Speaker 2: Your Mind. And if you would like to get in
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Speaker 2: to Blow your Mind dot com. Let's see, I'm going
Speaker 2: to kick things off with this message from j going
Speaker 2: ways back to our series on the beaver, a surprisingly
Speaker 2: fascinating animal, Jeff says, Greeting science Humans in regards to
Speaker 2: your episodes on beavers, I wanted to call your attention
Speaker 2: to a fantastic short film from the nineteen fifties featuring
Speaker 2: real life parachuting beavers, previously thought to be nothing but
Speaker 2: urban legends. It's called Fur for the Future, and it
Speaker 2: is well worth your time, and so the video Jeff
Speaker 2: links here is a short educational film strip from about
Speaker 2: the year nineteen fifty in color, produced by the Idaho
Speaker 2: Fish and Game Commission, And it's about the process of
Speaker 2: live trapping and relocating fur bearing animals like muskrats, beavers,
Speaker 2: and Martin's And yes, just as Jeff says, when it
Speaker 2: gets into the part about beavers, we see footage of
Speaker 2: a re your actual historical program for catching beavers that
Speaker 2: were considered a nuisance in one area and transporting them
Speaker 2: to new habitats by dropping them out of airplanes with parachutes.
Speaker 2: I loved this short film. This is the kind of
Speaker 2: educational film that was parodied to great effect on The
Speaker 2: Simpsons with like think where You'd be without sand or
Speaker 2: the one about how you would soon regret wishing to
Speaker 2: live in a world without zinc. In this one, the
Speaker 2: narrator paints a lyrical, almost heroic narrative of national identity
Speaker 2: based on the concept of fur. In fact, can we
Speaker 2: insert a bit of audio from the beginning here.
Speaker 3: Ur is important ur as a resource of our country
Speaker 3: and our time. We value the skins of fur bearing animals,
Speaker 3: or their beauty, they warm and their durability. The farmer
Speaker 3: bottled the fur driver across the continent. The trapper explored
Speaker 3: the forests long before the logger came. Cities were built
Speaker 3: and rivers and streams were harnessed for power and irrigation,
Speaker 3: along with timber and water. Fur is an important resource.
Speaker 2: So Jeff's email continues. The narrator has one of those
Speaker 2: classic paternal nature documentary voices and frequently reassures the audience
Speaker 2: that everything is just fine despite the alarming images in
Speaker 2: the film. Yeah, Jeff's right about this. There are moments
Speaker 2: where we see muskrats being lifted in and out of
Speaker 2: cages by their tails, and the narrators like, oh, it's
Speaker 2: just like God put a handle on this animal. It's
Speaker 2: his tail. You know, it's fine. Muskrat doesn't mind, Jeff says.
Speaker 2: The rationale for air dropping beavers into the countryside was
Speaker 2: that it was necessary to restore areas where beavers had
Speaker 2: been hunted out of existence, yet were two difficult for
Speaker 2: rangers hauling large crates to get to on foot. Operation
Speaker 2: Beaver Drop is clearly the highlight, but there is more
Speaker 2: to love than just plummeting rodents. I hope you get
Speaker 2: a kick out of it. Keep rubbing the fur, Jeff, Well,
Speaker 2: thank you, Jeff. This was a divine recommendation. If you
Speaker 2: listening now would like to go look it up. It
Speaker 2: is again called fur for the Future in it. I
Speaker 2: think you can find it on what looks like the
Speaker 2: Idaho Fish and Game YouTube channel for a bit of context.
Speaker 2: I wanted to find out the background on this, so
Speaker 2: I looked up some articles on the history of the
Speaker 2: Beaver Air Drop Project and I found a great article
Speaker 2: that was a piece for Boise State Public Radio by
Speaker 2: Samantha Wright published in January twenty fifteen. And I think
Speaker 2: most of the other articles I could find basically referred
Speaker 2: back to this one. So I think this is the
Speaker 2: main reported piece on it. And so I'll try to
Speaker 2: streamline and summarize the story how I can. It looks
Speaker 2: like the story goes back to right after World War Two,
Speaker 2: when a bunch of people started building homes around a
Speaker 2: place in Idaho called Payette Lake and a nearby town
Speaker 2: called McCall. But this was a place occupied by beavers,
Speaker 2: and of course beavers and humans can get in each
Speaker 2: other's way. They are both land and waterway engineers and developers,
Speaker 2: and they can cause problems for each other when they
Speaker 2: get too close. So the job of dealing with the
Speaker 2: beaver problem fell to an Idaho Fish and Game employee
Speaker 2: named Elmo Header. Header thought he could find a win
Speaker 2: win resolution to the situation because while the beavers were
Speaker 2: causing problems around the area of McCall, there was a
Speaker 2: place far out in the wilderness called the Chamberlain Basin
Speaker 2: that would greatly benefit, they thought, from the reintroduction of beavers.
Speaker 2: So he wanted to get these beavers over there, but
Speaker 2: the target area was wild and undeveloped. There were basically
Speaker 2: no roads. Header considered taking the beavers on pack horses
Speaker 2: or mules, but, to quote from a report Header made
Speaker 2: to the Journal of Wildlife Management exerpted in this public
Speaker 2: radio piece, quote, horses and mules become spooky and quarrelsome
Speaker 2: when loaded with a struggling, odorous pair of live beavers.
Speaker 2: These problems involve further handling and too frequently result in
Speaker 2: a loss of beavers. So transporting beavers in boxes by
Speaker 2: horse or mule caused problems for the horses and mules,
Speaker 2: and much worse problems for the beavers themselves. But Header
Speaker 2: had another solution. He said, what if the beavers could
Speaker 2: be moved by airplane, making use of the vast reserves
Speaker 2: of surplus parachutes left over after World War II. So
Speaker 2: he tried to come up with a design for a
Speaker 2: box that could be dropped from an airplane with a
Speaker 2: parachute and automatically release the beaver upon landing. And the
Speaker 2: first idea here was sort of ingenious in my opinion.
Speaker 2: It would be a box woven out of willow material,
Speaker 2: which the beaver could then chew through to escape after landing.
Speaker 2: So you take advantage of the natural beaveriness of beavers
Speaker 2: and let them just chew their way out of a
Speaker 2: willow box. But the problem was that the beavers would
Speaker 2: start chewing their way out as soon as they were
Speaker 2: placed inside, so this led to concerns that they might
Speaker 2: escape the box while still inside the airplane, which you
Speaker 2: can imagine the problems there, or also while falling through
Speaker 2: the sky, so that idea was no good. After that,
Speaker 2: they ended up designing a box with a mechanism that
Speaker 2: would automatically pop open upon impact with the ground. And
Speaker 2: then they tested the box repeatedly with an older male
Speaker 2: beaver who ended up being the first part of the
Speaker 2: first group actually transported to the Chamberlain Basin by this method,
Speaker 2: and along with three female beavers, that beaver did establish
Speaker 2: a successful colony in the new location. And in the end,
Speaker 2: a total of seventy six beavers were dropped from the airplane.
Speaker 2: All but one of them survived the process, and they said,
Speaker 2: got right to work with beaver business. Maybe let's hear
Speaker 2: how they describe the beaver air drop in for for
Speaker 2: the future.
Speaker 3: Parachutes are attached to cargo lines and the boxes are
Speaker 3: stacked in rows along the waist of the plane, ten
Speaker 3: boxes to eLOAD twenty beaver. Ready for the flight to
Speaker 3: mountain meadows. The plane makes a careful approach, ready for
Speaker 3: the drop. Now into the air and down they swing
Speaker 3: down to the ground near a stream or a lake.
Speaker 3: The box opens and a most unusual and novel trip
Speaker 3: ends for mister beab.
Speaker 2: So I'm not sure if this kind of beaver relocation
Speaker 2: program is something that conservationists would engage in today. The
Speaker 2: article by Samantha Wright has a note at the end
Speaker 2: saying that you know, today people are more often just
Speaker 2: asked to tolerate the presence of nearby beavers near their developments,
Speaker 2: but whether or not we actually try to relocate beavers
Speaker 2: like this today, it does appear that if you are
Speaker 2: going to relocate beavers, this was a pretty successful method.
Speaker 2: And they say in the article that the descendants of
Speaker 2: those beavers are probably still thriving in the basin where
Speaker 2: they parachuted in back in nineteen forty eight. So thank
Speaker 2: you for the email, Jeff Okay. The second message I'm
Speaker 2: going to look at today is in response to our
Speaker 2: series about the Ignobel Prizes, specifically these studies on boredom
Speaker 2: in students. This message is from Ranata. Renata says, Hi,
Speaker 2: Joe and Rob, I'm so glad you chose to talk
Speaker 2: about papers on boredom from the Ignobel Prizes. I have
Speaker 2: often thought about writing to you to suggest a topic
Speaker 2: on boredom, and I agree with all the points you made.
Speaker 2: Here's my brief history with boredom and what I think
Speaker 2: it means. When I was in elementary school, I remember
Speaker 2: a commercial came on TV with a line like, are
Speaker 2: you stuck in a boring job? And I said to
Speaker 2: my mom, having a boring job would be great. This
Speaker 2: memory sticks in my brain because what she said next
Speaker 2: was a piece of wisdom that I didn't understand at
Speaker 2: the time and would take decades to unravel. She said,
Speaker 2: you don't want a boring job. It's miserable. Fast forward
Speaker 2: to a job I had as a consultant where the
Speaker 2: work I was supposed to do wasn't ready yet, so
Speaker 2: I started to do other work, only to be scolded.
Speaker 2: My boss said that until the work came through, my
Speaker 2: job was to sit at my desk and look busy
Speaker 2: but not do any work, which was apparently my dream
Speaker 2: job since childhood. But it was miserable. My mom was right.
Speaker 2: At one point my boss said, I can tell that
Speaker 2: you get bored easily, which she meant as a criticism,
Speaker 2: and finally relented and gave me the task of fixing
Speaker 2: formulas in a spreadsheet. Fast forward again to the pandemic,
Speaker 2: and at this time a lot of people were talking
Speaker 2: about how much free time they had and how boring
Speaker 2: it was. For me, it was a time in my
Speaker 2: life that I was at my busiest, working sixty to
Speaker 2: seventy hours a week, and I was miserable then too,
Speaker 2: and jealous of people who had so much free time
Speaker 2: that they were bored. My boss, who thought that I
Speaker 2: got bored easily, probably meant that I abhor boredom, which
Speaker 2: I do and don't agree with. I think her assessment
Speaker 2: stems from conflating a few types of boredom that you
Speaker 2: touched on in the episode. In my own experience, there
Speaker 2: are at least three types of boredom. Type number one
Speaker 2: experiential boredom, when the experience you are having is boring.
Speaker 2: I spent all of elementary school in this state, and
Speaker 2: it was a time that I was most creative and introspective.
Speaker 2: This boredom feels uncomfortable at times, but, like you mentioned,
Speaker 2: for kids in church and school, figuring out how to
Speaker 2: engage your mind and get inspiration from things around you
Speaker 2: is a great skill. She says, I love your theory,
Speaker 2: Joe about entertainment being the opposite of this state. A
Speaker 2: stupor of having thoughts put into your brain for you
Speaker 2: a good podcast, show, book, etc. Should bore you a
Speaker 2: little bit. In my opinion, to let your mind wander
Speaker 2: and react to what you're experiencing. I'd love to hear
Speaker 2: your thoughts and research on how this relates to childhood development,
Speaker 2: especially ADHD. Second type of boredom, Renata says is interstitial boredom.
Speaker 2: Those bits of time you find yourself with nothing to do,
Speaker 2: like at an airport or waiting at the doctor's office.
Speaker 2: As an adult, these are some of my favorite times.
Speaker 2: It feels like I found a loophole that lets me
Speaker 2: not have to be an adult for a few minutes,
Speaker 2: and I have the freedom to either try to fill
Speaker 2: the time with a book, doodling, et cetera, or to
Speaker 2: be present in the space as it is. However, this
Speaker 2: boredom doesn't often happen at home, and if it does,
Speaker 2: it doesn't feel good, which leads to type three, existential boredom,
Speaker 2: the feeling that your life is boring and that you
Speaker 2: are a boring person. This is a bad kind of boredom.
Speaker 2: This is how I felt to the job where I
Speaker 2: wasn't allowed to do work because it leads to feelings
Speaker 2: of inadequacy and gives you way too much time to
Speaker 2: think about everything you did wrong in your life that
Speaker 2: led you to having a do nothing job. The quote
Speaker 2: bored teacher might be in this camp, but my guess
Speaker 2: is that their apparent apathy usually has more to do
Speaker 2: with burnout than boredom. I don't believe the other two
Speaker 2: types of boredom typically lead to existential boredom, but maybe
Speaker 2: if they go unchecked over a long portion of your life,
Speaker 2: they could. Curious to hear your perspective. Thanks for taking
Speaker 2: the time to read my letter. I'm glad you're still
Speaker 2: making an amazing podcast. PS. My current job is neither
Speaker 2: too boring nor too busy. Thankfully the very best, Renata. Well,
Speaker 2: thank you so much, Ranata. Yeah, I think we could
Speaker 2: come back into a series of episodes on boredom because
Speaker 2: there's a lot of interesting research. Ironically enough to address
Speaker 2: your questions. First of all, I agree with your three
Speaker 2: categories there. The interstitial boredom is very common. I think
Speaker 2: even when you have a lot of absorbing activites on
Speaker 2: your to do list, sometimes you're just stuck. You're stuck
Speaker 2: in a situation where you can't really get to any
Speaker 2: of them. And I'm very glad to hear that you
Speaker 2: are able to make good use of these moments. I
Speaker 2: know other people in my family who have talked about
Speaker 2: this as well. I think My mom has talked about
Speaker 2: enjoying being at the dentist as she can just kind of,
Speaker 2: you know, relax. I admire the ability to find the
Speaker 2: good in those moments. I do tend to find these
Speaker 2: periods really frustrating because I feel like the things that
Speaker 2: I want and need to do with my attention usually
Speaker 2: require some kind of sustained focus. And if I know
Speaker 2: that I could be interrupted, you know, called back to
Speaker 2: the doctor's office at any minute, and I'm listening for
Speaker 2: my name, it's like hard to force myself to get
Speaker 2: into that state of focus. With your category of existential boredom,
Speaker 2: I think this sort of highlights the link between the
Speaker 2: feeling of boredom and the feeling of meaninglessness. If you
Speaker 2: perceive what you are doing as without value or meaning,
Speaker 2: you are more likely to feel bored. But if that
Speaker 2: activity is not like waiting in line for fifteen minutes,
Speaker 2: but say the job you have to do every day,
Speaker 2: it's easy to see how this can have a pernicious
Speaker 2: effect on our well being and could make a person
Speaker 2: question their self worth. In large part, we are what
Speaker 2: we spend our time doing, and if you spend your
Speaker 2: time doing something that you do not feel is meaningful.
Speaker 2: Even if it's something you have to do, it will
Speaker 2: probably make you feel like you are not yourself meaningful.
Speaker 2: And I think this is one reason that it's important
Speaker 2: to incorporate multiple meaning structures in our lives. You know,
Speaker 2: you can't invest all of your sense of meaning in
Speaker 2: just one thing, especially not if it's like your job,
Speaker 2: because if you are at some point stuck in a
Speaker 2: job that feels valueless and brings on feelings of existential boredom,
Speaker 2: you can have other structures like family and friendships and
Speaker 2: art and religion and hobbies and projects that are there
Speaker 2: to give you alternative routes to meaning. Let's see, regarding
Speaker 2: your question about childhood development and ADHD, I don't feel
Speaker 2: like I have enough knowledge to comment on that. I
Speaker 2: do think it's interesting that you mention the idea that
Speaker 2: a really good book, for example, should be just a
Speaker 2: little bit boring enough to let you occasionally drift out
Speaker 2: of the process of reading and let you reflect on
Speaker 2: what you've already read. And I think I really agree
Speaker 2: with that. While you know, there are some books that
Speaker 2: are just totally effortlessly absorbing, you know, the things we
Speaker 2: would usually call page turners at least for me. While
Speaker 2: I can absolutely enjoy a good pop thriller novel that
Speaker 2: just pulls me relentlessly from one paragraph to another, these
Speaker 2: types of books are rarely the ones that I look
Speaker 2: back on after I'm finished and think, Wow, that was
Speaker 2: so interesting and valuable, I'm so glad I read that.
Speaker 2: Usually the books that I value the most in retrospect
Speaker 2: are the ones that take a little more effort to
Speaker 2: get through and sometimes would cause me to lose focus
Speaker 2: on the text itself and start reflecting on ideas that
Speaker 2: it raises. And this kind of connects to another idea
Speaker 2: about boredom, which is that it seems to me, based
Speaker 2: on what I've read, there's a kind of horseshoe spectrum
Speaker 2: of experiences that cause boredom, and the dimension along which
Speaker 2: that horseshoe bends is that of challenge. So some things
Speaker 2: are boring because they're too easy, and other things are
Speaker 2: boring because they're too difficult. So you can imagine an
Speaker 2: adult would probably become bored trying to read a bunch
Speaker 2: of books meant for toddlers because there's nothing there's no challenge,
Speaker 2: there's nothing to really stimulate the mind. But similarly, I
Speaker 2: think most adults would probably get bored trying to read
Speaker 2: a book on a technical subject that they don't understand
Speaker 2: very well. Think of the way that you would probably
Speaker 2: get bored trying to do college coursework in a class
Speaker 2: where you are hopelessly in over your head. You would think,
Speaker 2: in a highly challenging situation where you know you're you're
Speaker 2: dealing with coursework that's way over your your head, that
Speaker 2: would be a motivating state that would, you know, cause
Speaker 2: you to get really into it and really, you know,
Speaker 2: really want to focus your attention on the material and
Speaker 2: understand it better. And I guess for some people sometimes
Speaker 2: it does do that, but I think a lot of
Speaker 2: the time it just causes a feeling of frustration and
Speaker 2: hopelessness that makes one want to disengage with with this
Speaker 2: this course material. You know, it's just like you feel
Speaker 2: like you're never going to understand it, and thus any
Speaker 2: attempt to understand it becomes intolerably boring. And so thinking
Speaker 2: about this horseshoe sort of connects in my mind to
Speaker 2: the idea of the psychology concept of the flow state.
Speaker 2: You know, a flow state is a pleasurable state of
Speaker 2: intense foes and absorption in an activity or task that
Speaker 2: is usually evoked when we are operating consistently near the
Speaker 2: peak of our abilities, so the task demands exactly what
Speaker 2: you are able to give. If it demands too little,
Speaker 2: then you get bored because you're not challenged. If it
Speaker 2: demands too much, you get frustrated and want to quit,
Speaker 2: which I think either is a form of boredom or
Speaker 2: feel similar to boredom. I think a lot of really good,
Speaker 2: highly valuable activities, like a really good valuable book or
Speaker 2: a really good valuable project, are things that are right
Speaker 2: beyond the scale of challenge where it's easy for us
Speaker 2: to get into a flow state. They are a little,
Speaker 2: but not a lot, more challenging than is comfortable. We're
Speaker 2: able to make progress through these activities or in reading
Speaker 2: this book or working on this project, but occasionally we
Speaker 2: do get frustrated and confused and pulled out of the
Speaker 2: zone and forced to reflect on our progress in some way.
Speaker 2: I think those are a lot of the most valuable
Speaker 2: things you can do or sort of write in that
Speaker 2: sweet spot. It's just a little more difficult than is comfortable,
Speaker 2: and thus it is just a little bit boring. Also,
Speaker 2: I just wanted to mention a couple of papers related
Speaker 2: to boredom that I was reading that I thought, we're interesting.
Speaker 2: This is not directly related to anything you raised or not.
Speaker 2: But while we're on the subject, I can't recall if
Speaker 2: this has ever come up on the show before, but
Speaker 2: there was a paper published in the journal Science in
Speaker 2: the year twenty fourteen called Just Think the Challenges of
Speaker 2: the Disengaged Mind by Wilson at All. This is the
Speaker 2: kind of charismatic result where I'd be cautious about putting
Speaker 2: too much weight on it until I see it replicated
Speaker 2: several times. But it does look like at least a
Speaker 2: handful of studies have found similar things, so I think
Speaker 2: this is probably basically sound. The authors here took a
Speaker 2: bunch of research subjects college undergrads. For what that is worth,
Speaker 2: that may color your understanding of this result, but less
Speaker 2: took these research subjects and put them in empty rooms
Speaker 2: without access to their personal belongings. So you couldn't, you know,
Speaker 2: read a book or look at your cell phone or whatever,
Speaker 2: and these would they would be put in these situations
Speaker 2: for periods of between six and fifteen minutes, and the
Speaker 2: subjects were forced to sit and think for a few
Speaker 2: minutes with nothing to occupy, nothing external to occupy their
Speaker 2: attention other than their thoughts. In some tests, they were
Speaker 2: told to think about whatever they wanted. In others, they
Speaker 2: were given a specific like a list of prompts maybe
Speaker 2: to think about a specific subject, and then allowed to
Speaker 2: plan in advance what they were going to think about.
Speaker 2: And after this experience participants rated. They reported high rates
Speaker 2: of boredom, and about half said that they found the
Speaker 2: experience more unpleasant than pleasant. So it was a divided
Speaker 2: feelings about this experience, but about half were like, I
Speaker 2: didn't like that. A lot of participants preferred having something
Speaker 2: to occupy their attention, like reading or music, would much
Speaker 2: prefer that than just being forced to sit with their thoughts.
Speaker 2: So that seems pretty understandable that most people would rather
Speaker 2: have a positive experience than an experience that might induce boredom.
Speaker 2: But the really surprising result that was in one of
Speaker 2: the subsequent studies published in this paper was that in
Speaker 2: the fifteen minute condition, the researchers found that when they
Speaker 2: gave participants the ability to push a button to administer
Speaker 2: a mild electric shock to themselves, a lot of board
Speaker 2: subjects push the button. There was a large gender divide
Speaker 2: in these specific results. Among this cohort, twenty five percent
Speaker 2: of women and sixty seven percent of men decided they
Speaker 2: would rather voluntarily choose to receive an electric shock than
Speaker 2: just sit there and be bored. And I think this
Speaker 2: has interesting implications for our understanding of boredom as a
Speaker 2: motivating state. I mean, it makes me wonder about the
Speaker 2: adaptive utility of boredom as a motivation to escape the
Speaker 2: state of being bored. You know, it seems like it
Speaker 2: must serve some kind of important purpose, forcing us to
Speaker 2: sometimes even do things that we expect to be painful,
Speaker 2: or do things that we don't want to do, just
Speaker 2: to get out of the situation of being bored. Now,
Speaker 2: there's an important caveat to this, which is that this
Speaker 2: finding has been applied to the concept of boredom, But
Speaker 2: technically it was about forcing people to be alone with
Speaker 2: their thoughts, which might or might not have been perceived
Speaker 2: by the subjects as boring. Some subjects might have found
Speaker 2: it quite entertaining. But I think it's a fairly safe
Speaker 2: assumption that probably a lot of the people who shocked
Speaker 2: themselves did so because they were bored and this race
Speaker 2: is a question like would the same number of people
Speaker 2: shock themselves as a result of any kind of negative
Speaker 2: experience or is it something specific about bored or at
Speaker 2: least what we assumed to be boredom. I looked at
Speaker 2: another study that was following up on this. This was
Speaker 2: by chantal nadercorn at All published in the journal Psychiatry
Speaker 2: Research in twenty sixteen called self inflicted Pain out of Boredom.
Speaker 2: In this study followed up by asking participants to watch
Speaker 2: a film and they had the ability to choose to
Speaker 2: administer mild electric shocks to themselves while watching. And this
Speaker 2: was so there was like a neutral control film. There
Speaker 2: was a film designed to elicit the negative emotion of sadness,
Speaker 2: and then there was a monotonous film designed to elicit boredom.
Speaker 2: And they did indeed find quote participants in the boredom
Speaker 2: condition self administered more shocks and with higher intensity compared
Speaker 2: to both the neutral and sadness condition. So it does
Speaker 2: look likely that a lot of people would rather experience
Speaker 2: mild physical pain than boredom, and that even the negative
Speaker 2: experience of pain was judged at LEAs east in advance
Speaker 2: sufficient to alleviate boredom. That raises another question for me,
Speaker 2: which is I wonder how effective it was, Like did
Speaker 2: the people who gave themselves a shock feel less bored afterwards?
Speaker 2: Or is the shock only an illusory promise of avoiding boredom?
Speaker 2: I don't know, but anyway, to wrap this up, thanks
Speaker 2: again Renata for the email and for raising this issue again. Ironically,
Speaker 2: I do find the psychology of boredom to be quite fascinating.
Speaker 2: So that's going to be it for today's Listener Mail episode,
Speaker 2: but we will read more listener Mail next Monday. On
Speaker 2: Tuesdays and Thursdays of each week we do our core
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind episodes, which are usually about
Speaker 2: science and culture in some way. Wednesdays we do a
Speaker 2: short feature called The Artifact or the Monster Fact. On
Speaker 2: Fridays we do a series called Weird House Cinema where
Speaker 2: we each week pick a movie strange film, good or bad,
Speaker 2: well known or obscure, as long as it's weird. We
Speaker 2: watch it and we talk about it. And on Saturdays
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