“MOM, I’m booored” Words that have always made me cringe. I strongly believe that children need to stop getting so agitated and restless with boredom. If they have nothing to do, their minds should offer them a limitless playground of ideas and thoughts. “To be bored is to stop reacting to the external world, and to explore the internal one.” (source) I fondly remember my youth when I would sit around the house waiting for my friends to come over and play. I would bide my time mulling around the house, sitting on the front porch, or quietly exploring my surroundings. Some days this could last half the day! These moments to myself were so amazingly peaceful. An outsider would have thought them to be an immense waste of time, but looking back I wouldn’t trade them for the world. No email. No TV. No video games. No distractions. Just me and the real world. Just me and the stone I was kicking. Just me and the tree I was climbing. Just me and the ants on the sidewalk. Just me and the cars passing by. I look back wistfully at those long gone days of effortless simplicity. I miss being bored. I miss the quietness of nothingness. I miss the concept of ‘spare time’ when one could hit the pause button on life. I’m not talking minutes folks – I’m talking hours. And I now struggle to convey that sensation, that nostalgia to my children. I struggle to impart upon them the other-worldliness of disconnecting from the all-encompassing virtual world. I struggle to explain to them how disengaging from the twitchy distractions of this world will bring out their humanity. I struggle to convince them that boredom ought to be embraced and celebrated, not rejected and disparaged. I struggle to teach them that gadgets and trinkets, data and information, bits and bytes don’t make the person, but a thriving imagination, multifaceted emotions, and an intimate knowledge of yourself makes you a human. I struggle to assure them that our senses need not constantly remain stimulated by external sources, rather the internal fountain of divine inspiration is forever flowing and can be tapped wherever and whenever we wish. Instead, society is forcing me to cease my crusade on behalf of boredom while coaxing me to entertain my children. “What? Your kids don’t have the Wii?! That’s inhumane!” “What’s so wrong with giving them limited access to the Web?” “Why do you deprive your children from visiting the likes of Disney World?” “At least let your daughter have an email address. Let her join the rest of us in the 21st century.” “What’s the big deal with letting your son have an iTouch?” What’s the big deal?! What’s the big deal with letting my kids feel and enjoy uninterrupted stints of boredom? What’s the big deal with teaching my kids how to feel at peace while being alone? What’s the big deal with allowing my kids to mull around the house with their senses on park, but their brains on hyperdrive? What’s the big deal with giving my kids the freedom to simply be themselves? Must I be forced to amuse my children to death? Must I be forced to tether my children to the world? Must I be forced to surrender my children to their nafs? Alas, my dilemma is not isolated to my offspring, for I too wish to be free of these virtual chains that are slowly choking away our humanity. I so desire to experience again the joy of boredom.