Why Do Brains Get Bored?

Occasionally I receive a catalog called Mental Floss. They sell witty tee-shirts, brain teasers, toys, and puzzles. Great stuff, actually. But I gotta be honest, the name Mental Floss makes me cringe. Why? I'm bored with it. As a pun it was cleaver when I first heard it years ago, but still? Vanity, vanity, all is vanity.

Maybe I've been jaded by the suggestion an art client once gave me--create a bumper sticker that says, "Mental Floss: Fighting Truth Decay." Cringe, cringe, cringe.

To re-calibrate my word-weary brain I gave myself the challenge to come up with a new twist on Dental Floss: Fighting Tooth Decay.  Here are the winners.

Gentle Floss: Fighting Booth Decay
Rental Floss: Fighting Sleuth Decay
Yentl Floss: Fighting Ruth Decay

These phrases make absolutely no sense but they serve one important purpose: they get my dulled synapses flowing again.

Which leads to these questions about boredom.

• Why does the brain not appreciate hearing the same pun 10 times in a row? 
• Why does repetition wear us down? 
• Is this what Dr. Q meant when he said the eyes are never full of seeing or ears full of hearing?
• What pleasant chemical reactions occur in the brain when finding rhymes for "dental?"
• Why are dumb new ideas more stimulating than old good ideas?
• How could a guy 2500 years ago experience boredom? I don't think of ancient folks as being enervated by brain fatigue like me.
• Does Dr. Q's lament, "there's nothing new under the sun" mean "the brain is never content and needs constant stimulation with novelty?"
• Why are traditions, routines, and "business as usual" so pleasurable in small doses? Pilgrimages to the sacred places, eating the same breakfast, and kissing your lover on New Year's Eve with confetti and Champaign is fun . . . but every day? No. We need routine but also variety. Why?
• If we knew the answer to the aforementioned question then what? Then I guess we'd better regulate our creative impulses.
• Why is anticipation so pleasurable? In Team of Rivals (Doris Kearns Goodwin) a politician is cited as opposing gambling because it over stimulates the brain. In How We Decide (Jonah Lehrer) explains that dopamine is released by the hope of winning, the thrill of the chase, and the calculated payoff to gambling. Half the fun of vacations and Christmas is looking forward to them. And the other half of the fun is reminiscing about them (hence the photo albums). 
• Reductionist thinking says this is all chemical. I like to think the mind is more than electro-chemical, neurology, and biophysics. Isn't there a little me in there somewhere (ghost in the machine) who delights in rhyming?

I've just about exhausted my mind dump on the subject of boredom and am getting bored. Time to go.