Boredom is often described as an absence: nothing happening, nothing to do, nowhere to go.
But an interval is not an absence. It is a room whose furniture has been removed. At first the emptiness feels like a problem. Then the eye adjusts.
The mind, given no object, begins to make one. A question appears. A memory takes a different shape. The ordinary world becomes faintly strange again.
This is why boredom is useful: it gives desire a chance to speak before the world supplies it with a product.