Every winter, my parents and I left our hill town in northeast India when it got too cold — when the boarding school where they taught closed for three months — to travel across the country on a train. I remember the journey taking at least one full day and one full night. During this time, I’d stare at acres upon acres of farmland, minute after minute, hour after hour. Sights such as a man tilling his field with bullocks or a row of women carrying pots of water on their heads broke the monotony.

When we stopped at a station, my parents would buy something — tea in small clay cups, puffed rice with nuts, or sticky, syrupy jalebis. These were exciting interruptions. We drank too many cups of teas simply out of the need to do something with ourselves. Afterward, we’d throw the cups away, and they’d dash into small pieces next to the train tracks in a satisfying manner. The cups were made of earth and were returned there. In the calm boredom of these journeys, my imagination unfurled. I remember making up stories to keep myself entertained, a habit that I still fall back on when I can.

My life has changed drastically since then. I live in the DC suburbs now and have a job as well as chores to keep me busy. I rarely experience boredom of any sort these days. In fact, in the year 2026, “fun” is always a tap or a click away, and the average brain is perpetually engaged. Whether it’s a TV show that enthralls you for hours at a time (by releasing multiple episodes at once), or TikTok videos, which, despite being short, are diabolically addictive, video entertainment is to the 21st century what opium was to the 19th.

I’ve been meaning to get back into the world of imagination — and creative writing — for a while. I wrote an unpublished novel long after graduating from an MFA program many years ago. And even though I’ve wanted to write a second, I couldn’t get traction. Part of the reason for this is that life happened. I got divorced and became a single mom. The other part is that I gave into the seduction of intense entertainment.

But the desire to create never left, and recently, something shifted within me. I joined a writing salon. It’s a small space in DC with comfortable seating arrangements — and a lot of snacks. People working on different kinds of projects — from short stories to comic books — get together to write for a couple hours at a time as soft jazz plays in the background. The act of attending these sessions has helped me get over my creativity slump. Every time I’ve gone, I’ve written more than 500 words.

When I told a friend who lives in India and is also working on a creative project about how well this worked for me, we decided to try something. We’ve been calling each other over WhatsApp video on the weekend in order to write. Even though we’re literally continents apart, the video brings us together, and it feels soothing to write with her.

The concept of body doubling — where someone with ADHD works on a project in the presence of another person — has been known to be effective for decades. But maybe it’s not just people with attention issues who can benefit from this; maybe anyone with a creative dream who finds it challenging to succeed alone can. After all, there must’ve been a reason why authors like F. Scott Fitzgerald and Ernest Hemingway famously went to cafés to work. Maybe they, too, needed the company of others.

Whatever it is — the change of scenery, the presence of other people, or giving ourselves the gift of boredom — some of us just need that extra push to find our spark.

Ananya Bhattacharyya is a Washington-based editor and writer. Her work has been published in the New York Times, Guardian, Lit Hub, Baltimore Sun, Al Jazeera America, Reuters, Vice, Washingtonian, and other publications.