Boredom is in many ways an emotion of absence. The absence of stimulation, of interest, of excitement. But as Mary Mann reveals in her new book, Yawn: Adventures in Boredom, what’s lacking when we feel bored is often something much deeper than entertainment. She writes about her “fear that there was no overarching purpose for my time,” how boredom can paper over feelings of powerlessness or meaninglessness. It’s easier to label that itchy sensation “boredom” than it is to consider the feeling one gets sometimes that the train of life is stopped on its tracks, that the narrative is going nowher

Attention, editors: This article is accompanied by an illustration by Maxwell Holyoke-Hirsch that is available at no charge to clients of The New York Times Op-Ed service. WHAT BEST DISTINGUISHES HUMAN BEINGS FROM OTHER ANIMALS IS OUR FORESIGHT, AS SCIENTISTS ARE JUST BEGINNING TO RECOGNIZE. We are misnamed. We call ourselves Homo sapiens, the “wise man,” but that’s more of a boast than a description. What makes us wise? What sets us apart from other animals? Various answers have been proposed — language, tools, cooperation, culture, tasting bad to predators — but none is unique to humans. Wha

Everyone—moms, therapists, rock stars—says the waiting is the hardest part.It turns out there is a way to “wait well,” researchers say. People who feel anxious or pessimistic or who ruminate while awaiting news fare better than others when it finally arrives, the researchers say. They’re more prepared for bad news and more excited about good news.“If you are blindly optimistic and you haven’t steeled yourself for the possibility of failure, you might be caught flat-footed,” says Kate Sweeny, an associate professor of psychology at the University of California, Riverside, who studies how people