Boredom as Engagement Ground State Displacement: Understimulation as D(ξ), Chronic Boredom as Wrong Attractor, and Meaning as the Return Path

We apply the Displacement Framework to boredom, formalizing it as displacement from S0_engagement — the state of intrinsically motivated, meaningful activity — along two axes: understimulation (insufficient input) and meaninglessness (input without value). Seven formal propositions are derived covering: boredom as two-axis engagement displacement, adaptive boredom as return-path signal (boredom motivates search for more engaging activity — without it, no drive toward meaning), chronic boredom as wrong attractor (passive entertainment provides just enough stimulation to reduce acute D without returning to S0_engagement), the attention economy as boredom threshold exploitation (platforms designed to hover just above boredom threshold — maximum engagement at minimum D, preventing genuine return to flow or meaning), existential boredom (Heidegger's Langeweile — profound world-withdrawal where all entities lose their pull and S0_engagement itself becomes invisible), the default mode network creativity theorem (mild boredom forces DMN activation enabling creative insight — the boring meeting that produces a breakthrough), and boredom proneness as basin shallowness (individual differences in S0_engagement depth).

Boredom in incarceration, long-term illness, and forced waiting is analyzed as systematic D(xi_engagement) accumulation. Return paths include flow activities (Csikszentmihalyi), meaningful work (Frankl), and acceptance-based boredom tolerance. 18+ citations including Eastwood, Danckert, Csikszentmihalyi, Heidegger, Frankl, Bench, Lench, and van Tilburg.