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Archimedes, the ancient Greek mathematician and inventor, was tasked with solving a tricky problem for King Hiero II of Syracuse. The story goes that the king suspected his new golden crown had been mixed with cheaper metals, but he didn’t want it damaged. Archimedes had to figure out whether the crown was pure gold without melting it down. Tough brief.
Then, one day, while sinking into a public bath, he noticed something: the water level rose as he slid in. The volume of water displaced was equal to the volume of his body. That was it! The key. He could weigh the crown and measure its volume by how much water it displaced.
Archimedes was so thrilled he reportedly leapt out of the bath and ran naked through the streets screaming, “Eureka!” – the sudden flash when your brain wanders off and comes back holding the answer like a prize.
These moments don’t usually happen when you’re trying: they happen when you’re not. When your brain is doing nothing, or at least pretending to. Walking. Driving. Showering. Zoning out in a university lecture. Or, say, a wife on the brink of divorce, nodding along while her husband’s mouth foams at the sides as he monologues about cryptocurrency.
“I’m done,” she whispers. Eureka.
There’s a scientific name for this wandering mind magic: the Default Mode Network (DMN). It’s your brain’s background mode, active when you’re not. It switches on when you’re daydreaming, reminiscing or imagining fake conversations you’ll never have. When you’re “doing nothing,” the DMN is doing everything. It’s where creativity, reflection, and unexpected insight come from.
And one of its greatest allies? Boredom.
Boredom is not the enemy. It’s the invitation. A quiet stage your brain builds to see what might show up. But these days, we don’t let it. Boredom tries to knock, and we shove a screen in its face. The moment a little stillness arrives, in line, on the train, on the toilet, we reach for stimulation. Our brains never get to drop into the DMN. No daydreams. No deep thought. Just dopamine on loop.
Even Reddit noticed the death of the idle mind.
r/Showerthoughts, the subreddit born in 2013, was a shrine to those aimless, brilliant, dumb observations that bubble up when you’re bored and wet. At its peak, it was full of lines like:
“Your stomach thinks all potatoes are mashed.”
“Clapping is just hitting yourself because you like something.”
“Is Sand called Sand because it’s in between the sea and land?”
It was silly, accidental genius. The internet’s record of DMN activity.
But over time, it changed. The posts got shinier. Less “I just thought of this while shampooing” and more “I’ve been drafting this for three days in photoshop.” People in the comments began calling it out: these weren’t shower thoughts anymore. They were scheduled thoughts. Viral bait. Branded content in bullet point form.
The shower thought had been domesticated. Trademarked. Monetised.
But maybe it’s simpler than that. Maybe it’s not that the thoughts changed, maybe it’s us. The shower and the toilet used to be our last bastions of solitude. Now we bring our phones. People listen to full albums while exfoliating their scalp. Take business calls while walking the dog. Check emails mid-poo. There’s no more empty space for thought to wander through. We’ve filled every corner.
And when there’s no space, there’s no spark.
No boredom, no Eureka. No quiet, no insight. Just us, endlessly occupied. Expecting our next big idea to load, buffering behind five open tabs.
So stop taking your phone to the toilet! Allow yourself that loo-time clarity!
English (US) ·