Raw Dogging Boredom

How GenZ May Be Teaching Older Generations Something We Need to Rediscover

Will and I were watching television last night. It was late and just a few minutes before we were planning to go to bed. But the dog started circling in the family room and giving us hard stares. She couldn’t wait until our show was over and demanded that one of us let her out.

Since he was closer to the door, Will got up, followed the dog outside, and then immediately returned, asking if I could pause the show.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“I am going out to look at the stars.”

Proud dad moment.

I turned off the show, followed him outside, and we spent the rest of our time gazing at the sky.

I saw a TikTok video from a middle school girl “raw dogging boredom.” If you’re not familiar with the term “raw dog,” it’s used as a verb and has expanded beyond its original meaning to any activity done without preparation. In the video, the girl set the rules as: no television, no music, no food, no phone—for fifteen minutes on day one, increasing the time each day.

While there are many cynical commentators mocking the trend and questioning the thinking skills of the next generation, saying we have reached peak stupidity, I think the trend is worthy of reflection and not something we should so easily dismiss.

In fact, seeing Will step into silence on his own made that video feel less like a trend and more like a sign of something deeper happening.

I talk obsessively about pendulums. The idea is that when we, as humans, are so far to one side of a behavior or belief, we tend to swing hard in the opposite direction when we make a change. I see it all the time: people swinging hard the other direction with politics, ideologies, and religious beliefs. Usually, it means a person is trying to find freedom outside the norms and assumptions they’ve lived within. There is a deep yearning to break free and find more peace and balance in their beliefs and practices.

In an incessantly stimulated world, the pull toward balance and peace—for a generation that has rarely experienced either—may be a real thing. With so few guides teaching and living integrated and contemplative lifestyles, we may be witnessing a generation beginning to break free on their own, searching for respite from the technological quagmire.

For GenY and older generations, I wonder how we might let their experiments in presence become an invitation for us to step outside, pause, and look up again too. What might their desire for peace and freedom teach us about the natural yearning of the soul to break free from the only thing they have known? How might we learn from them and walk alongside them toward more liberated, more integrated lives?

So many questions worth considering.

Question

How would our lives change if we regularly turned off technology, stepped outside, paused, and looked up?

Peace,

Brandon

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